Hodel Harris: Top cop of the year 2013-2014

Third female to cop the title dishes about her love affair with the JCF

Shanica Blair, Gleaner Writer

Woman corporal Hodel Harris was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude on Tuesday, February 25, as she was bestowed with the very coveted Lasco Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Police Officer of the Year title for 2013-2014. Harris was humbled by the award and shares that it encourages more hard work and dedication. The St Ann native, who is attached to the Community Safety and Security Branch in Port Maria, is the third woman to have copped the award and the second from the St Mary Division, Area 2.

The woman corporal personifies diligence and intelligence and has a desire to address issues such as violence and social, domestic and other issues affecting young people.

After winning the award at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, she tells Outlook that she is overwhelmed with gratitude and was humbled and happy to have been selected from among her peers, whom she deemed were all very qualified for the top spot. "It was my dream to always become a police officer, but my mother was not so thrilled with the idea at first, because she probably had wanted me to become a bank teller or something. I, however, persevered and went on and did what I really wanted to do, and it was just moments before training school that I told her and it was then that she sanctioned it, and now she is proud of me and she was moved to tears today," she divulged.

Harris, who is also the 2013 St Mary Police Officer of the Year, divulged that there was a moment in her young career since she started six years ago that she had feared losing her life. "There was a moment when I was on duty after a shooting and the perpetrators were still in the area and I knew that I had to face the possibility of not going back home to my son," she said of the triple murders that rocked Annotto Bay late last year.

Despite the reality of her job, Harris was quick to point out that she really loves it and she couldn't think of anything else she would want to be. "It was my dream; I always wanted to become a police. I grew up admiring police officers, their shine shoes and the shine buttons, and I have always wanted it," she confessed.

One of the things she pointed out that she loves to do when it comes to her job is change people's notion about police officers. "I love relating with the community, I love changing the notion that citizens have that claim that the police are the bad ones. Most of the time, whenever I speak to somebody who despises the police; after I am finished with them, they will have some appreciation of what I do and why I am a police officer and reason to respect, if not love, the police," she disclosed.

A past student of the Golden Grove All-Age School, The Ferncourt High School and Moneague College, she is now pursuing a degree in project management at the International University of the Caribbean.

intrinsically motivated

When asked if she would someday want to be the commissioner of police, she laughed and told Outlook that she was not too sure about that, "I am not sure about that because I hear it gets very cold and lonely at the top. I will, however, aspire to whatever rank I can. I would want to be deputy commissioner of police though, because there are four of them, there is some company there," she added.

Despite resource constraints, she stressed that she works with what she has and tries to get the job done. "I am intrinsically motivated by the persons I serve, their happiness and their delight in me serving them," the newly crowned top cop ended.