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August 15 , 2008

Officer Worked With County School System Before Joining Force

The Town of Herndon police place a strong emphasis on community policing and their partnership with the community. In this series, The Observer will profile officers who work and live near or grew up in the Herndon community.

By Rebecca Plevin Observer Staff Writer

Herndon police officer Chris Farbry was a substitute teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools before he joined the Herndon Police Department five years ago. He said he was attracted to teaching for the same reason he enjoys being a police officer. "I always like helping people," he said. If he can help solve a problem, he said, "I feel better as a person."

Farbry's interest in teaching has extended to the police force, where he is now a field training officer. Field training officers, he said, spend up to three months with new officers who have recently graduated from the police academy. He said the police academy teaches young officers the basics of law enforcement, and more experienced officers then teach the new officers how to apply that knowledge to real-world situations.

He said he enjoys working as a field training officer because he has the opportunity to guide the professional development of the department's young officers. "I have control over how the department will be," he said.

Farbry said he can also instill core values in the department's new officers, and he will surely pass on at least one important lesson: the importance and value of community policing. He said building relationships with the town's residents is beneficial to the police because community members become a "force multiplier." They "see what we can't see," he said. In a perfect world, he said, every person who witnesses an accident would call the police. That way, he said, "Nothing goes unnoticed."

Farbry said he once dreamed of joining the FBI, but his career goals changed after he interned with the police department at Virginia Tech. During his internship, he said, he "saw the personal camaraderie between officers" and noted that police officers help the community and can "have fun while you're doing it, too." That internship must have taught him a lesson or two, because Farbry said he now looks forward to spending a long career with the Herndon police. "Most of my life revolves around this place," he said.