Officer Jean Cintron

What advice would you give to new recruits starting their police careers?

My advice is to spend time thinking about having empathy with people that are in distress. Some of them would not understand at first what is going on their situation because they're really stressed, while trying to calm them down. Also, another (piece of) advice is to try to study case law and the Florida statues. That's going to help you a lot when starting, especially in the FTO phase

Can you share a memorable experience from your career that had a significant impact on you?

When I responded to a call of a person laying on the ground on his house...me and another officer, we took immediate action to save that person's life. I performed CPR while the other officer was making contact with the dispatcher, then we called EMS. EMS arrived a couple of minutes later. I discovered that the person was alive, and I was told that if it wasn't for our efforts, the person would not be alive right now.

Can you talk about the importance of teamwork and camaraderie in your line of work?

Well, teamwork and law enforcement is really important because ... you need to communicate with your fellow officers. Also, if you need help in a question or answer that you don't know, it's important to ask. You will not look ... wrong if you ask a question. On the other hand, it's better to learn something that you don't know yet by asking a question than acting without knowing what you're doing. So teamwork is really important in law enforcement.

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