Goal: To protect and serve
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on September 24, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Goldsboro Resource Officer Nicki Artis shows his cousin, Jaleek Lewis, 13, the ropes of being a cop because he hopes to be one when he is older. "He reminds me of myself when I was his age," Artis said. Lewis comes to football games and volunteers to work as one of the regular cops.
A 13-year-old arrives at Goldsboro High School.
It's game night.
He's sporting a uniform, just not the one you might expect to see on a young man attending a Friday night football game.
Pads?
Yes.
But of a different kind.
The protection he wears stops bullets, not linebackers.
Jaleek Lewis is not like most teenagers.
He shows up to school with handcuffs, pepper spray and a bulletproof vest -- and a desire to make a difference.
Jaleek, quite simply, wants to be a lawman.
So he spends his Friday nights working a beat -- patrolling GHS, Eastern Wayne, Southern Wayne and Rosewood with his cousin, Student Resource Officer Nicki Artis.
"I've wanted to do this since I was 4 years old," he said.
When he was 6, he began shadowing Artis.
"I just walk around with Mr. Artis and he shows me different things that a police officer would do," Jaleek said.
The first time he put on his gear, he felt like "a big man."
And despite the fact that he has not yet used his handcuffs or pepper spray, he is always ready.
Jaleek humbly describes his primary duties as "making sure no one is smoking on the campus and no one is fussing."
But Artis dispatches him for other tasks, too -- like retrieving car keys from the band section.
The young man has a knack for navigating the crowds -- frequently stopping to greet familiar faces.
And he hopes that his presence might inspire his peers to do something productive with their Friday nights.
"Really, I'm getting a lot of people to see me and getting kids to see me and think, 'Oh, I can do that,' instead of playing video games and such," he said.
When he isn't keeping the stadium safe, he is just another teenager -- skating, playing soccer and strumming the guitar.
But he also referees youth basketball.
"Mr. Artis says he doesn't know how I do it, because I keep good grades and stuff," Jaleek said.
His dream is to, one day, become an FBI agent.
"I plan on going to college," he said. "I want to go to ECU and then I want to go to Goldsboro or the Wayne County Sheriff's Office for a few years to get a recommendation and then I want to go higher."
And while some see the police in a negative light, Jaleek isn't deterred.
"A lot of my family say I shouldn't do it because it doesn't pay a lot and you have a high risk of getting killed," he said. "But I always tell them that I'm not in it for the money. I'm in it because it's what I want to do."