Page 27 - January 2016

Portraits by Peter Bucks
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JANUARY 2016 27
Tributes to officers from the CPD Officer, Lodge 7 member and renowned artist
Three days each month, Valerie Ward works with the Department’s Violence Reduction Program serving on the streets in Englewood, Mount Greenwood and other targeted areas rife with shootings and the type of activ- ity that makes them, well, violent. And those are on her days off.
Valerie Ward Star 8262
“I don’t mind working it,” she relates. “In order to get the reductions, you need to have arrests, so we need to get on the street and get the activity.”
After serving on patrol for a number of years, Ward has spent the past three years working the desk in the 25th District. She started with the Department in 1994 and spent a year-and-a-half in the 7th and 4th Districts before moving to the 25th.
She said she doesn’t mind handling the plethora of traffic accidents that seem to constantly run through in rain, sleet, snow or sunshine. But she finds a higher calling serving inside.
“If you have a repeat offender on something like a domestic, I have a chance to talk with a victim about whether they really want to be with that person,” Ward says. “And I get to be the one to talk to young people when their parents bring them in because they are having trouble with them.”
At 32, Ward decided she wanted to become an officer. She quit her job one day, and started at the academy the next. She plans on working all the way to the mandatory retirement age of 63, another 10 years.
“As long as I’m in good health, I hope I can make it,” she explains. “I’m a people person and I love this job because every day I get a chance to help people.”