Father and son now 'fellow officers' with the Brimfield Police Department

Some parents get to take their son or daughter to work for a day, but Jerry Dumont and his son Cody have done that better.

Cody Dumont is now an patrol officer with the Brimfield Police Department, the same department his father also serves on. He was sworn in Nov. 1.

"He seems pretty squared away," said Jerry Dumont as he sat next to his son, still in their uniforms following a recent shift.

"From what I've seen, he seems to be doing a good job," he added. "He seems to get along with the other officers, which is a big thing."

Both drawn to police work

Unlike his son, Jerry Dumont, 51, did not have a police officer in his family to influence him, but he did have a chance as a teenager to learn about the profession from one.

"It just seemed like something I wanted to do," he said. "It was very interesting to me. It's the only thing that really kept my attention. I enjoy interacting with people."

The Dumonts, who both live in Summit County, are originally from Ventura, a city on the southern California coast. When Jerry was in high school, his sister was in a "big sister program" and the big sister assigned to her just happened to be a detective on the Ventura Police Department.

Jerry said that during periodic conversations with her, she would tell him about the job and guide him. He liked what he heard.

"Anything she had to say, I listened," he said.

Eventually, after moving to Northeast Ohio, Jerry went through the Stark State University Police Academy and went to work as a police officer in 2003, first in Geneva-on-the-Lake and then in Uniontown.

In Uniontown, he was a part-time officer who wanted to go full time, but did not see much opportunity for that there at the time. Living in Suffield Township, he took a position as an unpaid reserve officer in Brimfield in 2007, thinking it would give have a better chance at getting a full-time job there if something opened up.

It worked and he was hired full time in 2008.

Cody, who turns 30 in this month, said that as a child, he would sometimes visit his father at work and was influenced by him.

"I don't have an exact pinpoint of what it was, but it was always something that interested me," he said.

Before becoming a police officer, Cody worked in asset protection at the Brimfield Walmart, which allowed him to get to know a number of the township police officers. Toward the end of his employment at Walmart, he went through the Kent State University Police Academy.

The Brimfield Police Department was his first choice after graduation, but a position in the department was unavailable, so he joined the Uniontown Police Department. He was a full-time officer there for 18 months before a position opened up in Brimfield.

"I really wanted to work here," he said. "I liked all the officers here. I like the area. It just didn't happen right away."

He said working on the same department with his father is an "added bonus."

Going through training

Jerry said he is not his son's supervisor or his training officer and was kept out of the loop when Cody was hired.

"And I would have stayed out of it anyway," he said.

Even being on the same shift is only temporary. New hires, like Cody, are required to work for a period of time, which can vary, on each of the three shifts and first up was his father's 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. day shift.

On each of those shifts, new officers are assigned a field training officer who helps them to acclimate to the community, its roads and getting around it, departmental policies and procedures and how the court system works. While there may be similarities, these things vary from department to department, so even veteran police officers have to go through this training when they first come to the department.

"It's all the same, but it's all different," said Cody. "...You're learning how it's done here."

'We're fellow officers'

Both Dumonts say they have professional goals.

"I'd probably like to get back into supervision eventually," said Jerry.

He had been the midnight sergeant from 2013 to 2016, but then had to leave for about 15 months to deal with a family situation back in California. When he returned to Northeast Ohio, he was rehired, but had to start over as a patrol officer.

Cody said he would like to get some specialized training some day.

"Maybe K-9 or something like that," he said. "But at the moment, it's just getting some years in, get some experience doing the job."

Working on the same shift, the father and son have sometimes seen each other on calls, such as traffic accidents, vehicle lockouts and neighbor disputes.

Cody said he likes working on the same department with his father, but their relationship off the job does not really impact their on-the-job interactions.

"It's a very cool opportunity," he said. "But what it comes down to is the job. We're fellow officers. We help each other out. It just so happens I look over and it's my dad."

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Father and son now 'fellow officers' in Brimfield Township