Police Ride-A-Long

Officer Burns, of the Rexburg Police Department, arrested a juvenile for shoplifting at the local Family Dollar Store on 2nd E on May 23.

The clerk suspected her of putting items down her pants and called the police. Officer Burns took the suspect to the police department and, after questioning and a fellow female officer performed a strip search, he found that she had indeed stole toenail stickers and a fake flower from the store.

Officer Burns went through the procedure of getting her fingerprints and photo and then let her mom take her home.

“It’s disappointing to see youth ruining their lives over silly things,” said Officer Burns.

Officer Burns said that he almost ruined his own life when he was an adolescent. He went to parties he shouldn’t have been and did things he shouldn’t have done.

But he finally decided that the life he was leading was not for him. He wanted to do something different in his life.

Therefore, he joined the police department.

Officer said he enjoys his job, though he’s only paid $30,000 to $35000 a year.

“The hardest part about our job is the stress,” Officer Burns said.

He said that many people think that he has an easy job bossing others around and holding a gun all day.

“People don’t think about what we go through,” he said.

Rexburg is not the quiet, peaceful most people think it is, he explained.

He said that many police officers have found quite a few drugs in the area, including 1 ½ pounds of marijuana last winter

Though there are a lot of positive and negative sides to his job, Officer Burns said he really likes where he’s ended up.

His favorite part about his job is interacting with the people in the community, “even though some keep you on your toes and push you to your limit,” he said.