Who: Tim Dilday
Agency: Kinston Department of Public Safety
Rank: Commander
Joined: 1995
Education: New Bern High School, 1990; ECU, 1994
Family: Wife, three children
In his line of work, you have to be able to handle most things.
Cmdr. Tim Dilday oversees one of the Kinston Department of Public Safety’s four patrol division shifts. He said he and the officers under his command are the first to respond to calls and, as such, need to be ready for anything.
“We work 12-hour shifts. So 25 percent of the time, any given time, my shift would be working,” Dilday said. “During my tour of duty, I’m responsible for all law enforcement actions, basically, that occur. We respond to calls for service. From armed robberies, violent assaults, to ‘I lost my wallet,’ ‘my child won’t listen,’ ‘I’m having a problem with my neighbor.’ ”
Dilday spent the majority of his childhood in New Bern, and graduated from New Bern High School in 1990. Seeking a career in law enforcement, he studied criminal justice at East Carolina University, and after graduating moved in with family in Kinston to undergo an intensive internship with the local police force.
When he was younger, Dilday said, he thought of maybe continuing his career elsewhere. But the longer he served in Kinston, the more he wanted to stay. And though he’s worked in other divisions as an officer, being on the front line of law enforcement presents its own unique challenges.
“A lot of the people we deal with, we deal with regularly, because they don’t have the coping skills, or ability to handle their own faults, so they rely on us to guide them through life,” Dilday said. “And, that’s fine. Because, who else is going to do it?”
Like many aspects of life, how someone reacts to law enforcement can be shaped when people are children. Approaching children after an incident, whether it’s a kid playing with dialing 911, or something more serious, takes its own amount of sensitivity.
“And when you deal with children, it’s hard sometimes,” Dilday said. “Because, you can tell the environment that they’ve come from as far as interaction with law enforcement. A lot of kids, when they see you, they want to talk to you. A lot of kids when they see you, they shy away.”
He added, “If you get in a wreck, and you’re incapacitated, and your child’s with you, and the only thing they’ve heard about a police officer or a law enforcement officer is, ‘He’ll get you if you don’t wear your seatbelt.’ Or, ‘He’ll arrest you,’ or ‘He’ll put you in jail,’ how scared is your child going to be? We’re there to help in all manner.”
One of the keys to being a patrol officer, Dilday said, is to be able to find a level of understanding with people of many different backgrounds and experiences.
“You have to have a lot of empathy,” Dilday said. “You have to be able to deal with people from all walks of life. Regardless of where you come from, beginning this job, you see a lot of things that open your eyes. And I see a lot of things and deal with a lot of people most people don’t understand, or see a lot of facets of life that most people don’t get to see.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.