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Chief Scott Booth tells graduates: 'Your career will not be defined by one heroic moment'
Summary
Chief Scott Booth urged Roanoke Police Academy Class 92 to rely on character, continuous learning and compassion, reminding recruits that policing is shaped by everyday decisions and service to the community.
Chief Scott Booth, chief of the Roanoke Police Department, addressed Class 92 with lessons drawn from more than three decades in policing, stressing that ‘‘your career will not be defined by one heroic moment’’ but by thousands of ordinary decisions.
Booth said officers will face new technologies and changing community expectations and must commit to learning, accountability and treating people with dignity. He also noted the department's staffing situation when he acknowledged vacancies: "We got about 2," he said, characterizing current staffing as improved from prior years.
Booth urged the graduates to "wear your badge with humility, wear it with courage, wear it with professionalism, wear it with compassion," and closed by invoking Theodore Roosevelt's "man in the arena" passage to frame public service as honorable though demanding.
