When the current seniors were freshmen staying up late to finish their IRPs, the new School Resource Officer, Ryan Lacey, was also wide awake—though for a different reason. For five years, he worked “midnights,” shifts spent on the streets of Springfield from seven thirty in the evening to seven in the morning.
“I didn’t see the sun very much,” said Lacey. “I got so pale people were calling me translucent.”

Despite this, on a late night shift Lacey experienced one of his most defining moments as a police officer.
“When I was on midnights, a drunk driver hit a little girl on a bicycle,” said Lacey. “Thank God that little girl was okay. You know, it’s funny—they give us stuffed animals to put in the back of our car. So I gave her this little teddy bear, and she hugged me and said, ‘You’re awesome.’”
It was a moment that reaffirmed Lacey’s choice to enter law enforcement. Yet dedicating years of service to the community is not an unusual decision for someone with Lacey’s background.
“I’m a very service-oriented person,” said Lacey. “My whole family is. My dad is in the State Department. My brother was a magistrate for a while. My grandfather was a firefighter for fifty years or something.”
Yet Lacey is mainly a police officer for one reason: he likes his job.

“I get to see and do things that no one else gets to do,” said Lacey. Now, those responsibilities include walking around the hallways and greeting staff members and students. He witnesses all the ups and downs of life at a high school.
“I like to interact with kids,” said Lacey. That was the reason why Lacey opted to take Joe Plazio’s [the last SRO] place when he left to become a domestic violence detective.
“I’m just happy to be here,” said Lacey. “It’s a good change of pace for me.” He is eager to become helpful to students and members of the community.
“I have an open door policy,” said Lacey. “You know, I’m happy to have anyone come in here and ask me any questions they need to ask me.”
Mike Ukele, the school Safety and Security Specialist, agrees that students should take advantage of Lacey as a resource.
“If they come to me, I’m going to send them down to him if it’s something the police are able to handle,” said Ukele.
Lacey is aware that people can be intimidated by the police, but wants to make it clear that he is approachable and wants to support students.
“I don’t want them to be scared of me,” he said. “I know a lot of kids—they see the police and their first instinct is, ‘Who is he looking for? Oh, I’m going to get in trouble!’”
While Lacey does have the responsibility to investigate criminal activity involving the school, he wants to remain friendly and positive.
“I have to do things as part of my job, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be, you know, a jerk about it,” he said. Lacey applied that attitude even as an officer on the streets.
“When there’s somebody locked up in the back of my car, and I’m going to jail, you know, nine times out of ten, they’re like, ‘You’re pretty cool,’” said Lacey.