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Photo by Sam Yu
Stephanie Sparks, a new Brunswick police officer, has experience going back 20 years and inside information about the city’s police force. |
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When Stephanie Sparks took the oath as a Brunswick police officer last month, she brought experience and knowledge that made her unique and a little self-conscious.She declined to comment on her family when Mayor Carroll Jones coaxed her to say a few words at the Oct. 13 City Council meeting. So he shared the information that Sparks' son, Pat Spivak, had preceded her as an officer on the city force. Spivak, 24, left in May to join the Frederick Police Department. The bigger force has more career opportunities, Brunswick Police Chief Milt Frech said. "Pat Spivak was a very good officer," he said. Spivak is the reason Sparks came on board. After he left, he advised his mother to look at Brunswick . She had been an officer on the Eastern Shore since 2006, commuting 90 minutes from her Washington County home across the Bay Bridge. She was hired Sept. 21 and finds that Brunswick is a good fit for her. Jones read a long list of accomplishments and skills that could have a been good fit anywhere. Sparks started in 1988 as a Gaithersburg police officer. She is a Taser instructor, a radar operator, a hazardous materials technician, a swift boat water rescuer and a motor-school motorcycle graduate. "She knows the ropes," Frech said. Sparks always wanted to be a police officer. Taking time off from 1995 to 2006 to raise three children did not change that, but she saw the job a little differently when Spivak made the same choice, she said. "Truly, when he first decided to do this I was not happy." Spivak's thorough safety training at the Frederick Police Academy put her mind at ease, she said. "That makes a huge difference." Her own training at the Montgomery County Police Academy in 1988 was just as good. "They were tough about officer safety," she said. All law enforcement officers fear for their safety at some point, she said. Good training made her feel confident about being Montgomery County's first female road officer. Brunswick , with its interrupted street grid, is new to her. Some roads reach dead ends but continue elsewhere. "The streets stop," she said with a tone of astonishment. Satellite-assisted squad cars sometimes guide her wrong, but she finds her way. She is getting acclimated, Frech said. "I truly do like policing a small town," she said. "It's nice."
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