Joshua Kinder
RCPD Public Information Officer
Whether as a teacher or dispatcher, or even in the next chapter of her life as a soon-to-be retiree and full-time grandmother, Evans has always been drawn to helping others.
In January, Evans will walk away from the Riley County Police Department after more than eight years on the job. She came to RCPD after teaching 17 years at Flint Hills Christian School where she taught 4th grade and also junior high and high school math.
One thing is certain, though. Evans doesn’t plan to slow down, even in retirement.
“I’m retiring to things, not from things, like RCPD,” she said. “I love RCPD, but there are so many other things I really want to do as well. It’s been a great job and I have absolutely loved being a dispatcher. I’m going to miss it.
“But I’m going to be grandma, and my husband and I want to travel because we have a lot of adventures yet that we’re looking forward to.”
Evans came to the police department after answering a social media post about an open dispatcher position. She hadn’t considered a job in law enforcement before, but thought she might have the right skillset for the position. After all, the classroom can prepare a person for a lot of things.
“There was a tweet that said, ‘Did you ever want to tell a cop where to go? Come be a dispatcher,’” Evans said. “I thought that was really funny and I started thinking about what it takes to be a dispatcher.”
Evans wasn’t completely foreign to the life of first responders, though. Her grandfather was a firefighter and her brother was a volunteer firefighter, so there was some familiarity, but it’s still not quite the same.
“Law enforcement, it was just what I read in books,” said Evans, who turned down two other job offers without knowing for sure if she had the dispatcher position at RCPD. “I didn’t have experience with law enforcement at all, so it was really about understanding all of the details of why we do what we do – it didn’t come really easy to me. It was a huge learning curve.”
If there was one thing that did come natural to Evans, it was the confidence that she wouldn’t panic under pressure.
“As a teacher, I never panicked when a kid would fall and break their arm on the playground, and I taught at an inner-city Cincinnati school where there were some extreme behaviors, so I sort of knew I wasn’t going to panic,” said Evans, who was also a stay-at-home mom between her time teaching in Cincinnati and Manhattan. “I do love problem solving, so I thought that would be a skill I could bring to it. But I didn’t know for sure because none of us know until we’re actually doing it.”
But this was an entirely different kind of problem solving. As a dispatcher, they really are the community’s first responders in times of crisis. RCPD’s communications center handles all the emergency calls for Riley County, including police, fire and EMS.
“That’s a real honor, so to be able to give them hope, give them the encouragement and reassurance that somebody is on their way,” Evans said. “And to be able to know what kind of help they need and get the right response to them as quickly as possible – that’s really encouraging to me. That’s the reason I do it.
“We talk a lot about how dispatch brings order out of chaos. I love sorting through what is being reported, putting it into an orderly fashion and then be able to pass it on to first responders, so they can get there and respond appropriately.”
Responding appropriately really says it all for Evans, who has taken on RCPD’s Project: Guardians program with the same care and compassion she shows distressed callers. It’s important to her and hits close to home too.
Project: Guardians is a community program developed by RCPD to help officers and first responders provide appropriate responses to those who require special assistance in the community – like children, who have wandered away from home, or may have special needs. It also serves those in the community with cognitive disorders, Autism and Alzheimer’s and have a difficult time communicating. This program began in 2016, but Evans has really taken the lead in recent years, making presentations to community groups and organizations to help sign people up in the program.
“My aunt (with Alzheimer’s) was on a boat in Branson when she went in one door of the bathroom with my mom and then went out the other door and they couldn’t find her,” Evans said. “Just the fear in those situations and knowing how much reassurance there would have been if they had a photo of her already or a description. My mom was panicked, couldn’t even remember what she was wearing that day.”
Project: Guardians utilizes a private, secure database located with the records of RCPD that includes a digital photo, personal and contact information and ways to get in contact with a caregiver.
“We gather that information – not in the stress of the moment – but when you’re able to sit down and know they normally wear this kind of shoe, where they might hide or whatever behavior is their tendency,” Evans said. “You want to be able to think of those things calmly, not under stress. And then we have that information when there is a stressful situation or a crisis and we can pass that information along. It’s just beautiful when it works and we can easily resolve a situation without making it traumatic for either the officers or especially for the person we’re looking for or engaged with.”
Evans knows this program works.
“We had one who ran away and he loved superheroes and ambulances, and he loved police lights,” Evans said. “Mom was trying to get him to go to the hospital for a mental health crisis. We knew which direction he had gone – we had descriptors and mom was able to tell us what he was wearing that day. We already had height, weight, hair color because he was in Project: Guardians. The officer who was responding – he had that information and could see him up ahead. The officer called him by name and said, ‘Hey, I hear you like superheroes.’ The officer confirmed it was him and we got mom on the phone, and she asked, ‘Because he liked ambulances, can you get an ambulance to take him to the hospital?’
So, we staged an ambulance a block away, mom gave permission and the officer says, ‘Hey, there’s an ambulance over there, do you want to see it?’ They walk over to the ambulance and EMS has also communicated with us also, so they ask if he wants to ride in the ambulance. He willingly goes to the hospital and mom meets him there. Instead of any sort of crisis or escalation, it’s now de-escalated and he’s where he needs to be, but voluntarily and cooperating.”
Her work with Project: Guardians has inspired Evans to hopefully encourage other agencies to start similar initiatives. Perhaps in Lawrence, where she will be moving to be closer to her grandchildren.
“I’m hoping – because we’re moving – to contact agencies in that area and if they don’t have programs like that, to help them see the value of it and do whatever I can to help them start it,” she said. “I firmly believe the more information you can give officers or first responders ahead of time, the better the response is going to be and the better the outcome is going to be for everybody.”
Evans also has plans to assist the Lawrence unhoused population – in her own special way.
“We have a church that we’re already involved with there and one of the things I’m really excited about is something they have called a ‘washed ministry,’ where they have a trailer for unhoused people to take showers and do some laundry,” she said. “It’s a huge issue there, and one of things I’m going to be able to is help mend clothing – one of my skills is sewing – so I’m excited to be able to help with that population.
“It’s something that is important to me because I believe everyone needs to be seen and heard and treated as a human being.”