AIRWAY HEIGHTS – At one point in his life Patrick Carbaugh wanted to escape the hardships of growing up in a troubled home, and the path he chose would ignite a passion for helping troubled youth.
The 37-year-old police officer grew up with a single father in Airway Heights under rough circumstances he said. “My mother had turned to drugs when I was young and passed away when I was 11,” he said, “and we lived in a broken home in poverty, so my sister also turned to drugs.”
Carbaugh said he wanted nothing more than to escape that negativity so he signed up for the marine corps as soon as he could. Serving for two years, he was set to deploy to Iraq, but an unexpected surgery came up and he was medically discharged.
From that point he started going to college and found a desire to study criminal justice, and graduated with a two-year degree from Spokane Community College.
In 2008 Carbaugh began working as a correctional officer for Spokane County Jail, and said it was during this experience he really saw the problem with generational crime. He worked there for eight years and said he would see sons, fathers, and grandfathers all incarcerated for similar but separate crimes, and it built a desire to stop that generational negativity.
In 2016 he was hired by the Airway Heights Police Department and has worked in that capacity since. Carbaugh said he is excited for the opportunity to work more as a mentoring officer, and is optimistic he will create change and “make a difference in the lives of these kids.”
Carbaugh said a lot of his motivation also comes from his relationship with Jesus, and that his wife is a Pastor at Summit Church in Spokane. At one point, Carbaugh even considered starting a non-profit that would specialize in creating positive adventure opportunities for troubled youth willing to make a change.
He said as an officer in the schools he will primarily serve as a mentor that works with kids to lessen or prevent troublesome behavior. “A lot of kids grow up in negative or uncaring situations, and I want to be a positive influence where they don’t have one,” the officer said.
Carbaugh said it will take a lot of work though, as many of the kids don’t trust him or have a negative image of police to begin with. He said the middle schoolers are the toughest audience as of yet because they don’t find trust easily. “I can build trust with the elementary kids pretty easily, and I can reason with the highschoolers, but the middle schoolers are tougher,” Carbaugh said.
The mentor said he finds it easier to build trust when he shares some of his personal experiences, and that can create connections and show similarities that the kids can latch on to.
He said he has seen a definitive increase in youth driven crime in and around Airway Heights, but is optimistic through this job he will be able to lessen the negativity the children are experiencing. He said he would much rather work in a capacity in which he can “stand beside them and teach them how to prevent the behaviors than standing opposite of them and building a paper trail around them.”
Matthew can be reached at [email protected]
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