Officer calls Lakewood a 'perfect fit'
05/13/2019
Officer Lerric Boyd Talks to
freshman Azaria Lasseter and
junior Tajai Newton during
lunch time. (SHAMAR WILLIAMS | Alpha-Omega)
BY MALKOLM BELFOR
SNN Staff Writer
Growing up in Chicago, school resource officer Lerric Boyd was never personally involved with the law. However, he did see other African Americans getting mixed up with the police. As a young man, Boyd didn’t fear the police, he always had a level of respect for them. But seeing these run-ins with the law in his community gave him an understanding of why some African Americans would be scared of cops.
“African Americans felt as if they weren’t treated fairly, and they didn’t have the same opportunities as their white counterparts had. I think that’s what commutes the fear and negative vibes when it came to police officers,” he said.
This distress that the black community felt when it came to law enforcement had an impact on Boyd’s decision to become an officer.
“I wanted to show a different image. I wanted someone who looks like me to know that police officers are still there,” he said. “I wanted to have a career that I could bond with people that look like me.”
It appears Boyd is making an impact. On April 30, Pinellas County named Boyd one of four finalists for School Resource Office of the Year.
Boyd has spent his career working in black communities and says that it is sometimes an advantage being a black officer. Because of his life experiences, he said he thinks he is better at defusing situations involving someone of the same race whose stress levels are up.
“I feel like because of who I am and my culture and my upbringing I can deal with them better,” Boyd said.
However, being an African American officer can sometimes be a disadvantage, Boyd said, the main one being that other African Americans believe that you owe them a break because you are of the same race.
“It’s not like that. You have to treat everybody the same,” Boyd said. “You just enforce the law and it goes for everybody, black or white.”
Although he is always careful about applying the law evenly, wanting to give people a different impression of police officers was part of the reason why Boyd became one. He said his main purpose for choosing law as a career was to help people.
“A lot of times in life you look for certain things where you can do that. This is a field that I feel like I can have an impact and help people, especially young people,” Boyd said.
Most of Boyd’s 31-year police career has been spent working with youth. Prior to working in the school system, Boyd was the local executive director and president of the St. Petersburg Police Athletic League, an organization that provides kids with mentoring, meals, academics and athletics. This led him to believe that being a school resource officer would suit him.
“This was like a perfect fit to come here and deal with more youth. That’s always been my passion, and this is what I love to do,” Boyd said.
Working with students at Lakewood has given him many opportunities to deal with young people. One of Boyd’s most memorable situations involved a search to find a student who left an anonymous suicide note at school on a Friday.
“We were scrambling because it was at the end of the day and school had just let out, so we tried to go back and look at the cameras,” Boyd said. “We ended up doing a writing comparison and ended up doing a couple things and actually found who we thought the student was and paid a visit to the student’s house.”
The student whose home they went to was indeed the one who left the note.
“The student had some serious issues that had happened in their life and we ended up addressing that,” Boyd said. “At the same time there were some other issues involving that whole entire family.”
This incident happened around Christmas time and Boyd ended up petitioning the police department and received a $500 gift certificate and other gifts that he gave to that family.
At first Boyd’s mother didn’t want him to become a police officer. In 1988, she flew down to Florida from Illinois for his graduation from the police academy and refused to pin his badge, a ceremonial tradition where someone puts the badge on the uniform of a new police officer.
Boyd said not much has changed.
“She still wants me out of it yesterday,” he said.
But she says that stories like the one of Boyd helping the student who left the suicide note make her happy that her “model son” can influence people’s lives.
“He is a blessing and has been very instrumental to helping so many people in so many ways,” she said.
Boyd is the father of eight, four boys and four girls, none of whom pursued a career in law enforcement. But he said if they were to he wouldn’t have had a problem with it.
Campus monitor John Darby says that he “most definitely” sees Boyd’s parenting skills translated into his job as a school resource officer.
“He is very good with giving kids a lot of chances and breaks. He is a great SRO,” he said.
Seven of Boyd’s kids went to Lakewood. They are all adults now. One of his sons works for Delta Airlines and all his girls are involved with cosmetology. Two own cosmetology business and the other two are in the medical field, one being a registered nurse. His son can get him free flights, and for the last seven years Boyd has traveled to a different place once a month. He often travels back home to Chicago but has also visited other states across the country, including Colorado and Arizona and countries outside of the United States such as Jamaica and St. Thomas.
“I’ve gone to almost every city in the United States,” Boyd said. “St. Thomas was the most interesting place I’ve traveled to because I got to see their culture.”
The end of next year marks the 32nd year of his police career, the year that the state governments’ public safety plan says he must retire. He says that he wants to continue traveling but is not certain what else he will do after he retires.
“Right now, as a possibility I might stay in law enforcement and go into the reserve program,” Boyd said. “But at this time, I’m not really sure.
Again, I want to still probably involve myself in something dealing with youth or not.”
He doesn’t have to work again if he doesn’t want to, but he says he may to keep himself occupied.
Hall monitor Greg Hinton said that Lakewood's campus will be different after Boyd’s retirement.
“I think he has led a legacy at Lakewood amongst the staff and students, bringing a positive attitude along with protection and welfare,” Hinton said. “He brings a good morale and positive atmosphere to the workplace that will be missed.”