This week’s A Portage Life in the Spotlight is Portage Police Officer Greg Coleman who was recently named as the second School Resource Officer for Portage Township Schools.
Officer Coleman is an eight year veteran of the Portage Police Department. He is a graduate of Portage Adult Education and has been a member of the Portage SWAT Team since 2007. Coleman lives in Portage with his wife and daughter, who is a student at Fegely Middle School.
“I got clearance with her [his daughter] before I started, it was one of the things I had to ask.” He said, “It could impact her and I didn’t want it to be a negative thing, so I talked to her about it and asked her if it would be okay. She was really onboard with it.”
In 2010, Officer Coleman was named Portage Police Officer of the Year and revisited that year in the interview.
“You know what, that year was a year that I set out, I always wanted to do well for the community, and that year, I don’t know if it was that group of guys on midnights, we all meshed really well, that year just started off as a blessed year. It was a tremendous year, for the whole turn,” he added.
Officer Coleman is the second School Resource Officer assigned to Portage, working with Officer Mike Candiano who took over the duties at the High School in January following Troy William’s promotion to Chief of Police. Coleman is assigned to the two middle schools, Willowcreek and Fegely and will work at the elementary schools as needed.
“I report to the middle schools, right now it is a rotating schedule, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at Willowcreek and Tuesday and Friday at Fegely. Then at the elementary schools as needed, officer Candiano and I split that,” Coleman added.
Officer Coleman, who has been with Portage Police for eight years, spent six of those years working the midnight shift on the road. After being on the road for eight years, Coleman said he has a lot of adjustment to go through.
“It is a huge learning process here because there is so much new. I was on midnights for almost six years so being on day turn alone has been great.” He added, “Being on midnights for so long, a lot of the time we deal with folks in a negative way and being on midnights we dealt with things like drinking, fighting and seeing people at their worst, then to come here to the schools, there is so much positive energy with the kids, it’s contagious.”
Coleman added that he will miss the road work but is looking forward to the new opportunity to work with students at the middle schools and is more than willing to take on the huge work load that comes with being the SRO.
“Even though I loved being on midnights and hunting down the drunk drivers, this was a much needed change. I realize that even more every day I am here. The work is busy, there is always something going on between either schools. I love the work load and I love to have to go from one thing to the next,” he said.
“It is the same role that officer Candiano talked about at the high school, building a relationship between the police. That is something that I have tried to do since I started on the road, maintain that level of professionalism that would help people remember a positive impact with a police officer. I am trying to carry that into the schools. I am not here to just be that school cop that is here to get people in trouble, my role is not just disciplinarian” he said.
Coleman’s interests in becoming a police officer stems from the experiences he had as a child when his father was a police officer.
“My dad was a police officer for a few years. The stories that he used to tell it sounded exciting and I have always wanted to help people that aren’t able to help themselves, and fight for the people that can’t fight for themselves,” he said.
Talking about the welcoming at the schools, Coleman could not be more pleased with the staff and students he will be working with at Willowcreek and Fegely Middle Schools.
“It has been very welcoming here. It has been interesting to watch how each grade level handles it, sixth, seventh and eighth,” he concluded.
For his tireless commitment to protecting and serving his community, School Resource Officer Greg Coleman is A Portage Life in the Spotlight.