Patrol seeks more colors to wear the maroon

For nearly six years, Pilar Stone has been a Minnesota state trooper, a graduate of a program she describes as "hell for six months," and yet, still, she hears the digs, she says. She is just a traffic cop, police-officer friends will tell her. It's a joke, Stone said, and she accepts it as such, because "they know when we are needed that we will be there."

"We are proud of the maroon," she said, referring to the trim on her uniform.

But perceptions that they are "real police" on the one hand and traffic enforcers on the other makes minority recruiting tough, said Col. Mark Dunaski, chief of the State Patrol, who acknowledges "a problem recruiting diversity."

Of the State Patrol's 545 sworn personnel, 67 members, or 12 percent, come from minority groups. Pare that to racial minorities, and it is 19 people, or just 3 percent.

The agency has tried several strategies in recent years to bolster its minority ranks, and this year it plans another: offering positions to people with two-year and four-year degrees outside of criminal justice and law enforcement.

The idea expands on a federally funded program earlier this decade that was tailored to four-year-degree recipients; in 2002 it attracted Stone, who is Hispanic. Though she had a law-enforcement degree, Stone recalled that one classmate was a music major.

Lt. Col. Kevin Daly said that the State Patrol also will continue a break with tradition begun last year whereby candidates are given conditional guarantees up-front saying where in the state they will be assigned in the state. For instance, of potential Southeast Asian candidates with Twin Cities roots, Dunaski said: "Why would we send them to International Falls?"

Advertising for the new positions begins this Sunday, Daly said. But whether the plan comes to full fruition also will depend upon approval of a new state transportation funding bill, Dunaski said. A proposal put forward in the state Senate last week would add 40 new troopers, he said, enough for a dual-track hiring program including both the nontraditional candidates and people with criminal justice and law-enforcement degrees.

The idea of opening cops slots to people with nontraditional degrees has been a signature element of the Minneapolis Police Department's "cadets" program, and was endorsed last week by Mylan Masson, director of the law enforcement program at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

"I believe police should be reflective of the community they serve," she said.

More than 'blue'

At State Patrol headquarters, all agency commanders wear uniforms, making for an odd sight given their proximity to a downtown St. Paul food court. Each commander also patrols at least eight hours every three months, Daly said.

Gathered in the chief's office last week, Dunaski, Daly and Lt. Mark Peterson, the State Patrol spokesman, extolled a career choice that, yes, they said, can lead to more than patrolling highways. There is accident reconstruction work, too, Peterson said, among other tasks. But all three, and Stone, see virtue in patrol work.

Stone, sitting at a diner Monday, talked about fatal crashes that involve drunk drivers: "That means we were too late," she said. "We should've stopped them."

A native of Argentina, Stone moved to the United States when she was 15; in her mother's view, she was destined for a law-enforcement career because, among other things, as a child she liked dressing up as Wonder Woman.

She settled on the State Patrol after graduating from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and riding along with troopers while working as a dispatcher in St. Peter, Minn.

Asked why other minority-group members might be cool to the agency, she said they may see police work as the more direct way to give back to their communities.

"But we have a much bigger community," she added.

Masson said some candidates, accustomed to urban life, also might be put off by perceptions of outstate isolation. In addition, she said, "they don't know anyone in the State Patrol. Their fathers and grandfathers weren't there, like in a Minneapolis or St. Paul."

As she prepared to get back into her patrol car on Monday, Stone noted again the pride she had in her uniform, and smiled at the thought of the rigors of academy training. "I'd go through the whole thing again if I had to," the trooper said.

Anthony Lonetree • 651-298-1545