MPW.66 / 2014 The Job of Her Dreams by Noelle Swan Gilbert
Photographer
Noelle Swan Gilbert Los Angeles, Calif.

Team Lee

Story Summary

On the drive to the Sheriff’s station the mood is heavy and the only sounds inside the patrol car are the wheels humming on the highway and Deputy Blair Dudley’s private cell-phone rattling in its dock. There’s a twenty-year-old woman in the back seat of the car wearing pink handcuffs and under arrest for driving with a suspended license as a result of a DWI. Deputy Dudley takes the suspect to the Platte County Jail, gently reassures her that everything’s going to be okay, and in the process manages to make this woman’s worst day a little less horrible by treating her with compassion. This is typical treatment from the most unconventional productive Deputy Sheriff in Missouri, as Deputy Dudley, 28 years old, refers to herself. Her mother worries about her safety and wishes she’d get a “real “ job. But ever since she was a child watching “Law and Order” with her grandmother, being a law enforcement officer is all Dudley has ever wanted to do. This is the job of her dreams.