Cases of domestic violence, drug abuse, homicides are all in a day’s work for Nyre-Thomas and other diocesan clergy in Los Angeles who volunteer as chaplains, riding along in police cruisers and offering spiritual support to officers, victims and suspects.
Police chaplaincy began as a labor of love 15 years ago for Nyre-Thomas, 68, who also serves part-time as an assistant priest at St. Luke’s Church in Long Beach.

“The cops were suspicious of me at first,” she recalled. “They wanted to know, who is this woman priest who wants to ride along with me all day long? Is she here to report to the chief, or is she here to proselytize? Do I have to stop swearing? But over the years, I’ve married them, buried them, been friends with them. They’re close to me, and now we enjoy one another.”

Public Information Officer Israel Ramirez, a seven-year veteran with the Long Beach Police Department, said chaplains offer a valuable community service to officers and the public.

“It’s a team effort,” Ramirez said. “It helps out that the chaplains are right there with the officers and, if their services are needed, the assistance is immediate. “For example, if an officer has just had a major traumatic event — whether they’ve seen somebody injured or killed, for example, and the officer has children of their own, they’re going to need to talk to somebody and the chaplain is already there to address whatever concerns the officer may have,” Ramirez said.

“I’ve had chaplains ride along with me and often, when I’m talking to one person involved in the call, the chaplain talks to the other. It’s a team effort.”

Difficulties of police work

Approximately 10 chaplains volunteer with the 950-officer department, representing Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths. The department is seeking interested Muslim and Sikh volunteers, he said.

“We’re interested in anybody who wants to volunteer,” he said. “They put in a great amount of time and effort, are often available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There’s a lot of dedication in the group.” Chaplaincy has been an education — mostly on-the-job in spite of the police citizens’ academy classes she attended, Nyre-Thomas said.

“As a priest, I’m always prepared to think everybody’s okay and everything’s going to be all right,” she says. “But cops can’t think that way. When we respond to a call, we park three doors away from a home, so anyone looking out a window won’t see the car. And when we approach, we stand to the side of the door and knock, so that when they open the door, they can’t see who’s there for a minute, but you can see them, to see if they have a weapon. Then you tell them that you’re responding to the call.

“I had to learn how to take care of myself and be aware of the environment.” During her six months as chaplain with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division, the Rev. Alexandra Conrads said, she’s acquired a whole new set of life lessons and approach to pastoral care.

“I’ve learned a lot about personal safety, about identity theft, things that I’d never have known before. The opportunities for pastoral care are amazing,” said Conrads, vicar of St. Martha’s, West Covina.

“The most incredible thing that has happened was ministering to an officer with cancer,” she recalled. “Being a police officer, it was difficult for him to admit he was scared about a surgery he was going to have. I got him holding a cross, and he took it into the operating room with him. When the surgery was over, they put the cross back in his hand before wheeling him into the recovery room. All he remembers was waking up holding the cross and feeling the love of God.”

Everyone needs spiritual care

Both the police she accompanies and the people they encounter are starving for spiritual care, she said. “The rewards are so many,” she said. “You’re helping people that really need it and learning about pastoral care at the same time. People told me that because I’m young and a woman that nobody would talk to me, but it’s been just the opposite, they’ve been incredibly kind.”

The rewards are great, agreed the Rev. Robert Gaestel, rector of Church of the Angels for 21 years and a Pasadena Police Department chaplain for two. He’s been known to join officers in helicopters, at community meetings, at Homeland Security bomb-making tutorials and on the shooting range, even qualifying with their standard issue Glock-17 pistol.

“Since I began volunteering with the Pasadena Police, nobody messes with me anymore,” joked Gaestel of his service with Los Angeles County’s third-largest police agency. “It’s a very different culture than your normal parish, and the parish is certainly proud of me for being involved in the community in this way.”

All kidding aside, he has gained a serious respect for the difficulties of police work and the intensity of pastoral care required. “It is incredibly difficult what police officers do,” he said. “They see people at their worst, good and bad people at their worst, and it’s very stressful, can be dangerous.”

Two weeks before Christmas one year, he was called to a homicide scene. A 15-year-old boy lay dead on the sidewalk behind a building. “I walked the crime scene and preformed last rites before the CSI unit came,” he recalled. There was also a massive traffic fatality near Pasadena High School that underscored the difficult nature of police work and chaplaincy assistance.

“Some students were racing, and a car carrying four sisters flipped,” he said. “One wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was killed. I sat with the parents for about three hours in the mobile police unit until it was time to make the identification.

“I said prayers over their daughter with the parents and the officers. It was really bad news, because the sister driving was also legally drunk. Not only did she have to live with the fact that she caused her sister’s death, she was also facing possible prosecution and jail time. It brought home to me the level of tragedy the police often deal with.”

Spending time on the shooting range and at crime scenes helps to bridge the gap between the world of police and civilians, Gaestel said. “They tend to see the world as filled with two types of people — us and them. It helps to break down that us-them mentality. It also helps to see police officers as human beings — I understand what they’re doing much better than I did before.

“They’re strong and brave, but they don’t necessarily deal with human emotions well. They don’t like being around dead people, and if I can be there, to make death notifications for them, they are very, very grateful.”

His volunteer work also lends insight into the complexities of human existence, he said.
“It is real sobering to see what people can and will do to one another, and to look at it without flinching. It is also wonderful to be a faith presence for people in that moment, to companion people in those times when human beings are at their absolute worst and, often, their absolute best.”