Harrisville chief talks challenges, career change
Jeff Hollidge, chief of the Harrisville Borough Police Department, has been working in law enforcement for more than 12 years.
In his experience, the best advice he could give to a young officer is to recognize that there are more supporters of police than critics.
“The smaller percentage of negative people that maybe don’t support law enforcement, you kind of have to not take how they feel personally,” Hollidge said.
And while that criticism often comes from a place of misunderstanding, he said, it can be devastating to officers, both new and experienced.
“You have a few non-supporters of police that, so to speak, attack things that you do and maybe not completely understand what we do and why we do things,” Hollidge said. “That can be really hard on officers — especially newer officers that don’t fully understand why people are saying things or doing things.”
The advice, he said, was something he learned himself as he began his own career.
