Karen Shoemaker has been cheif of the police in Keyser, W. Va., for the past four years. SHe began in the department as an intern in 1990, then was hired as a dispatcher. In 1993, she was assigned as a patrol woman.

Q. Why were you interested in law enforcement as a career?

A. “Initially, I didn’t know I was interested in law enforcement as far as the police profession goes, but I was taking a criminal justice degree in college. The law always interested me, but I didn’t necessarily ever think I was going to be a police officer. I thought I’d maybe like to be a paralegal or maybe way down the road an attorney or something like that. But because we had to do an internship in the criminal justice field, and there weren’t any law offices or anything on the list of possibilities, we picked law enforcement up and Keyser was the nearest agency to me.

“So when I came here as an intern, I thought I’d just kind of watch things and watch the dispatchers, and I thought, ‘Here’s an opening.’ And I still, even when I became a dispatcher, thought, ‘I may not end up here, but it’s a place to get in and kind of see how the law works.’ ”

Q. Have you found it to be more or less difficult to get into law enforcement because you are a female?

A. “I don’t think it’s necessarily more difficult. When I was in college, some of the naysayers would say, you know, ‘Good luck ever getting a job because it’s probably never going to happen.’ But I thought, well, I’m going to find a way to make it happen. You know, I was just going to keep at it until I ... until somebody knows how much I want this. But as far as the men here, they’ve treated me wonderfully. It hasn’t made any difference at all. I mean, from the time I came here as a dispatcher, I never had any problems. They’ve never made it an issue. Never.”

Q. What do you feel has been your most important accomplishment as chief of police?

A.“When you first mentioned this, I thought. ‘I wonder if we should ask the guys about this and see what they think’ (laughs). I really think one of the main things we’ve accomplished here is to kind of get us up to speed a little bit more with technology because when I first came here, and even up until the time that I became chief, we didn’t use computers at all. We had one computer and that was for the teletype. It was used to do the driver’s license checks, criminal checks, etc. But we did everything on just a couple of typewriters. Every officer used two typewriters. So, all our stuff was on paper ... everything.

“So now we all have computers; we have a system now that’s integrated between officers and we can get information a whole lot quicker. Once the dispatcher types in information now, the officers can pull it up immediately and we, with the touch of a button, can find out if someone’s been a suspect before. If we want a location, we can type in a location and see what complaints have been filed from that particular location — those type things.”

Q. What do you think has been your biggest challenge?

A.“My biggest challenge, and it’s probably the challenge of any chief that’s come up through the ranks, is that you come up through the ranks from being a co-worker with some of the men. You know, one of the former chiefs here now works for me and, that’s been an interesting dynamic as far as that goes. But, I mean, I think that’s been my biggest challenge ... learning to be the boss and not a co-worker. That’s been hard.”

Q. What would you like the people of Keyser to know about the police department?

A. “I guess one of my goals within the police department is an ever-evolving thing. Because we do have a group of young officers, I want them to know we’re not a paramilitary organization — that our intent is to be ... even though we like to be technologically up to date, we’re a small-town police department. That we are accessible. We handle everything, and we’re filled with complaints, but we handle everything from the barking dog to speeders, to more serious crimes. We want to be a community police department. It takes a long time.

“I think that police officers, when you get on the police force, you have an idea of what it’s going to be like and you find out it’s not quite like that. I think it takes years to develop a good officer and get him in tune with the community and get him the education and the experience it takes just to be good. That’s the thing we’re working toward — educating and training the officers and training them to be community police officers.”

Q. What do you feel is the worst problem facing Keyser in terms of law enforcement?

A. “Drugs is a huge issue for us. And, you know, one thing is getting information from the public. Of course, people are sometimes afraid to give information and don’t want to get involved. Another thing is just having enough officers to cover the amounts of complaints that come in. We just get so many. And to cover them in the thorough manner in which each complaint should be covered, it’s just hard. I mean, it’s frustrating. My job is a lot of administrative paperwork, but when I go out, and just the few complaints that I do handle, they’re so hard to keep up to date, to do the investigative type things you need to do to try to clear a complaint, because you get one officer working so many that it’s hard. But the head of every agency would tell you the same thing; that they need more people.”

Q. What piece of advice would you like to give, as chief, to the children and youth of the community?

A. “Well, one huge thing is, watch who you hang out with. You know, your friends influence what you do and, I think with society in general today, there is so much more to get into than there ever was before. Your friends can influence you for the bad or for the good.”

Q. There’s been a lot of talk about setting up the day reporting center here in Mineral County. Do you feel it’s going to be helpful to your department?

A. “I don’t know how it will affect us. I mean, on occasion we could use a community service worker, but we’re limited in that because so many of the things we have to do here — the information is so confidential — we can’t have them around the computers or around the desks. Other than cleaning and, really, we can’t have them in and out of the cruisers, so as far as having someone, it’s very limited in what we can do. The city in general, I think, might be able to use some of the people and that might be a tremendous help to some of the other departments.”

Q. Frostburg State University has been having its share of problems this year with students. How has the atmosphere been so far with Potomac State’s students?

A. “I think it’s been really good. Years ago, I remember when I first came on, the underage (alcohol) consumption arrests and the rowdiness and things like that were up. Now, of course, Potomac State College employs their own campus police and some of that stuff we wouldn’t get, unless of course it happens off campus. But as far as crime involving campus students, I don’t see that it’s been bad at all.”

Q. Is there anything you would like to see the West Virginia Legislature enact in terms of law enforcement?

A. “Well, there are some things personally, as far as retirement for law enforcement officers. I’d like to get them to work on some retirement bills for officers that would make us more in line with what the sheriff’s department and the state police have. We all really do the same job but our retirement’s a lot less and we have to work longer. That’s one thing.

“Another thing I would like, I don’t know what agency or law enforcement branch this comes out of, but just generally come up with some type of funding for drug work. I mean, just some overtime funding for some of the officers, or some special grants for drug work. Right now we have eight guys and one part-time person, and so many complaints that, like I say, it takes a long time to investigate things properly. But drug work in and above that is just more than we have the funding to do. There’s been all kinds of things with the main emphasis of homeland security lately, and that’s a good thing. We’ve got it county-wide and we’ve put it to use, but I would just love to see something out there that we could put some more guys in drug investigations. Some more money for overtime in that aspect.”

Q. Do you find that a lot of the drugs are coming in from areas like Baltimore?

A. “Yes, a lot of it is coming in from out of state, but you know, the locals who have had arrests for that, they somehow find those people. They meet and then, of course, our local people become sellers. It’s just very hard for the average patrol officer that puts his time in, first of all, to do those investigations while he’s doing regular patrol. That needs to be done at another time and addressed in another fashion.”

Q. How does the chief of a small town like Keyser keep up with the technology and law enforcement methodology?

A. “Well, I’m a member of the West Virginia Chief of Police Association, so a few times a year I have contact with the chiefs from bigger departments and it’s kind of like getting in there and finding out what’s available and find out what they’re doing and where they get their grants and where they get their funding. And I question them to the hilt.

“We don’t have in-car computers yet and that’s something down the road I’d like to get, but as far as making the building more secure, it is. I mean, we have a door that has biometrics where you use your fingerprint to come in; it’s a secure door. And just like the computers and all that. You know, I just keep asking and keep trying to find what’s out there that could make us better. And that could be a full-time job because it does change constantly. But that’s just a goal of mine. Something I’m very much interested in is keeping us up with the times. And we had a ways to go to catch up. But we’re getting there.

“And as far as training goes, I’ve become acquainted with Capt. Sadler of the Law Enforcement Training Committee, and so the new things that come out ... he sends us brochures every month so that we can keep abreast of what’s the latest training out there. And I’ve asked council and they’ve been very good; they’ve increased our training budget and I think our officers now have more training than they’ve ever had.”

Q. One thing you have done, too, is to bring the training here instead of sending your officers out of town.

A. “That’s real important. That way, all the agencies can receive the training, whereas we spent some of the same money to send one person clear to Charleston. Now, we can bring somebody from Charleston up our way and train anybody in the whole county who wants it. So that’s been better. I think that we’re really moving ahead on that.”

Q. Anything else that you’d like to add?

A. “I am just real proud of my force here. I think that they’re really young and I guess people need to know it takes a long time to be a good police officer, like it takes a good amount of time in any job to be able to acquire all the skills you need. So I ask the public’s patience with us in that aspect. I think the guys are really trying hard to do a good job and it’s just a never-ending job. It’s not 9-to-5 and the complaints are up. People who have a barking dog want that issue dealt with just like people who have had thousands of dollars stolen from their house. I mean, whatever is pressing you is the issue you want dealt with right now. I think we’re learning and growing, and I certainly am in this job, because it was a lot more than I ever thought it would be. I don’t think anybody knows what it’s like until you step into the door here. But I really enjoy it and I really like all the men I work with.”