by Margay Blackman,
Brockport Village Mayor
It was a Tuesday spring afternoon when I met Officer John Vadas in the parking lot at 1 Clinton Street for a ride-along. As Mayor, I’ve done several ride-alongs with different officers on various shifts over the years. Each ride is unique and offers a distinct portrait of our 2.2 square mile village and its people. I wanted to ask Officer Vadas about his work with the Brockport Police Department (BPD), how and why he became a drug recognition expert (DRE), and how he nearly lost his own life in the canal rescuing a suicidal victim last fall. Riding shotgun (the actual shotgun is mounted face up between the driver and passenger seats) in his police car with notebook and pen in hand, I interviewed him as he went about his job.
Officer Vadas was born and raised in the Brockport/Spencerport area. He still bears the blocky build from his high school football days at Aquinas. The Chief teasingly refers to him as “Hulk.” He went on to major in Criminal Justice at Roberts Wesleyan while working as a security guard at Wegmans corporate. He is married. His wife is completing a Ph.D. in nursing, and they live in Sweden. Policing is in his family. His father was a Monroe County Sheriff’s Deputy and ran the canine unit for 15 years. At just 21, Vadas joined the Brockport Police Department in 2016. “My first big boy job,” he smiled.
Ride-along #1
Before entering the car, the first step – always – is to inspect the trunk’s contents. Officer Vadas explained the items as he picked up each for me to view: heavy-duty first aid kit, AED, flares, fire extinguisher, AR-15 rifle and cartridges, 50+ lb. vest that will stop AR-15 ammo, an ax, and a Halligan (a multipurpose forceable entry tool). Everything, and then some, that one might need during eight hours on the road. The electronic system that runs the galaxy of computer equipment in the car is permanently mounted in the trunk.
I settled into my seat for the first of two afternoon ride-alongs while Officer Vadas checked the flashing police lights and logged on to channel 1 of the county dispatch system on the radio. This channel includes Brockport, Ogden, Fairport, East Rochester, and all three Monroe County Sheriff zones. The City of Rochester has two channels of its own; the NYS police tune in wherever they are in the area. Vadas has no set driving route, but during his shift, barring any demand for his attention for an extended period, he will cover all streets in the village. At some point, he will also spend time out of his car walking the beat, as the community policing mission of the BPD requires “feet on the street.”
The first two-and-a-half-hour ride-along proved quiet and routine, interrupted only by a phone call from a level 1 sex offender needing assistance in filling out paperwork and mailing it to the State Sex Offender Registry. Officer Vadas referred him to Sgt Korn, who handles business related to sex offenders. We drove through one commercial village property that had requested special attention regarding potential vandalism, inspecting the property from the car.
Drug Recognition Expert
Pinned on the front of Officer Vadas’ uniform is a small gold bar lettered DRE, which stands for drug recognition expert. It’s a police specialty that originated with the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1970s, requiring detailed training and annual recertification. The DRE’s skill is in identifying, through observation and a series of 12 tests, the category or categories of drugs influencing an impaired person. It’s not a roadside test (like the field sobriety test of impaired drivers), but rather a post-arrest exam taking roughly an hour to complete. There are about 15 DREs in Monroe County and over 400 in NYS. In the six years since becoming a DRE, Vadas has done about 70 evaluations, which are neatly logged into a thick three-ring binder. DREs may be called on by other police departments, by hospitals dealing with drug overdoses, and they may testify in court.
Chief Travis Gray of the Odgen Police Department, a former DRE, introduced him to the skill. It’s the second most demanding of the various police schools, Vadas said, adding that a DRE is often able to help in circumstances where others cannot.
Ride-along #2
The second ride-along the following Tuesday was not so routine, or maybe, in another sense, it was. Two-and-a-half hours were consumed by executing an order of protection, a wellness check, and a mental health assist. The order of protection was served against a man who had beaten up another at a local bar/restaurant. The perpetrator was fetched from his home in handcuffs and taken before a judge at village court. The wellness check took us to the Brockport Middle School, where a student had been suspended for threatening violence. The police would contact the mother and invite her and her son to the BPD for a conversation.
The assist ate up a considerable amount of time. We were called to a village residence occupied by a disabled, intoxicated, alcoholic man in his 60s who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks. A social worker from Rochester’s Forensic Intervention Team (FIT) was on hand trying to convince him to go to the hospital (as a necessary prerequisite to entering detox). FIT is often called upon to help in mental health cases, but only when it’s safe for them to be present. This was not the first visit for either FIT or the police to this home. The man has relied on their continuing assistance. The social worker went to Walmart to find him some clothing while we waited with him for the ambulance. From the time we arrived until the man was lifted to a gurney and loaded into a Gates Ambulance headed to Strong Memorial, a good hour had elapsed. “Domestics and mental health calls are through the roof,” Vadas noted. “These are the top two jobs we see the most of.”
Life-saving: Part of the job
While working on this piece, I read the reports of two 2023 mental health incidents in which Officer Vadas played a critical role. Both were suicide attempts. One was a teenage girl who had jumped into the canal and was drowning. Not hesitating, Officer Vadas, in full gear, followed by Officer Sime, jumped in and managed to pull her out safely. The second was a young man with a gun to his head threatening to pull the trigger. Over more than an hour on the phone with him, Vadas managed to convince him not to kill himself.
As my time with Officer Vadas ended, I asked him about police work in Brockport. “It’s not slow,” he said, “and not so big that I don’t have a connection with people. You can run with something here. The call volumes keep us busy. I like to be doing something. I like proactive work and keeping moving. When I come to work, I don’t know what’s going to happen, what I’m going to be doing for eight hours. Every day is different. I like that. I know it sounds corny,” he added, “but I work with my two best friends, and I like to work with good people.”
