Interview; LPD Chief Mike Zaro

CA; Why are you retiring?
MZ; I’ve heard for years the refrain from people getting ready to retire, announced their retirement and say it’s just time. And I always thought there would be more to it, but it really is. You get this feeling like it’s just time. You know, with the exception of a few years in the late 90s, I’ve literally been driving the same road to work every year for the last 29 years. You know, I’ve been seven years as assistant chief, almost eight years as chief, and just about everything that this profession has to offer. And I think it really is time for just a change. For me and for the department. It’s as simple as that.

CA; And do you have any advice to the new chief?
MZ; He’s a very experienced L.A. law enforcement professional. Yeah, a lot of experience from LAPD. That’s where he grew up in law enforcement in LA, Birmingham, which is a very significant agency.

CA; How does it compare the size of Lakewood?
MZ; Much bigger as probably about the size of Tacoma is my understanding. My advice to him would be even though it’s much smaller than LA, much smaller than Birmingham, you know, it’s its own place, and it’s not a huge city, but it has a lot of the same problems. And I think understanding the uniqueness of Lakewood, I think is paramount to being successful as a police chief. Because the people that live here, see it as unique as well. The people live here don’t don’t see it as just a suburb of Tacoma, or stuff on I-5 between JBLM and Seattle. The people that live here, they’re proud of their city and to them it is a unique place.

CA; Lowest points, highest points?
MZ; Asking about lowest points is kind of like asking me to compare tragedies. You know, it’s just hard because there’s been so much in my career and as to, you know, just some very, very low points. You know, the loss of our four officers, Aaron Grant committing suicide followed by a friend of mine 10 days later. It’s… there’s no shortage of low points, and each is unique.

CA; Did you know that coming in?
MZ; No. I mean, it’s, you never really… when you read about a tragedy like that or hear about it, you think we kind of understand, that we want to have empathy for the people going through it. But you can… empathy only goes so far, until you really live it. And that no matter how prepared you are, until you go through major line-of-duty death or loss or committing suicide, it’s hard to really appreciate the depth of it, and the impact that will have on you forever.

CA; There must be a bunch of highs.
MZ; Yeah, and that’s tough to do professionally because it’s a profession based on responding to crisis. But some of the… I think the best moments that I have are just with the people that I get to work with. You know, we have little retirement events at the station last week for just department members and city staff and a couple of friends from other law enforcement agencies. It’s such a great group of people to get to work with. And you develop such a strong camaraderie and connection, really that’s the highlight. That’s the career highlight. It’s the people that you meet, and the people you get to work with. From start to finish, you know inside and out of the department.

CA; Are you fully retired? What are your future plans?
MZ; That’s a very common question for, you know, let’s say ever since I announced my retirement, there is this sort of assumption that ‘he just retires’, that you’re gonna go do something else. And at some point, I probably will because I’ve had a job or been in school, literally non-stop since I was 13 years old. So I won’t be able to sit around and do nothing for long, but I have not committed to anything after today. I’m gonna wake up tomorrow morning and not have any commitments, have no hard future plans. I’m gonna wake up and just see what I feel like doing and wait until I feel like doing something. Whether that’s instructing, I don’t know what that next thing might be. There will be a next thing. I just don’t know what it is yet or when it’s gonna come.

CA; When you say instructor do you mean law enforcement? Do you mean like teacher, not like law enforcement? A volunteer activity you might be interested in?
MZ; I might do some more of that. One of the most rewarding aspects of this job is as specifically as Chief is getting out and connecting with the different organizations in Lakewood that do charitable work. Like you know, the Emergency Food Network or caring for kids and things like that. All those I will probably gravitate towards something. I just don’t know what that is.

CA; Do you plan to stay in the area?
MZ; Yes. Born and raised in Washington. My wife and I’ve lived in the same neighborhood for 25 years, 26 years. There isn’t that one place that we’re dying to get to and we don’t want to move just for the sake of moving. And our adult daughters are starting to put down roots in this area too. So all that adds up to us staying put for a little while. See what happens.

CA; How did you become a cop?
MZ; So I was in on a biology track in college, wasn’t really doing it for me. And then one day a recruit police recruiter came to talk to the class and it was something where it, just, it was for me, you know, the potential to do something new and something different every day and not being tied down in an office, you know, meet different people and there’s the excitement and the action part of it too. It just, it spoke to me. And that that led me to the sheriff’s department.

CA; You probably didn’t intend to become a leader in law enforcement. So we’ll assume that whatever you took on, probably be pretty damn good at.
MZ; I did not start out thinking I’m going to be the chief someday. And if you ask anybody that knew me way back when they’d be lying if they said they knew I was gonna be a chief someday. So no, I didn’t start out that way. But it was just the way the stars aligned.

CA; What do you plan to do first thing Saturday morning, has Mrs. Zaro, got a honey-do list?
MZ; Not necessarily. My oldest bought her first house recently. And it needs a lot of work and I so I’ve been spending a lot of time on that and I’m sure that will continue to be part of my pastime and ongoing pursuit.

I sent a message out to the Department yesterday about my career and in retrospective and I get asked a lot about, you know, I would do it over again today, with the environment that way, knowing what I know now. The rewards today are the same as they were 29 years ago. The challenges are the same. They might look a little different but I mean, when I started, we were on the heels of Rodney King. Within 18 months of getting hired in 1994 we experienced our first line of duty death. So the challenges have always been there. But the rewards far outweigh the challenges and I always have in that sort of retrospective that you don’t get until you start to get to my point or my position. But because I am in my position, I am about to retire and I do have that retrospection, I can say without reservation I would have done it all over again.

Now, let’s go ahead the talk about candor and ability to communicate. That’s been one of the rewards. You know, it’s just connecting with different people and if you go out and you approach everybody, like, ‘that person could be my next friend’. And, you know, they might disagree with me. Whatever they’re saying might sound angry. But I’m just gonna listen to, you know, at the core, there might be something. You could hear something good.