People-first policing: EWU’s new police chief hopes to continue changing perceptions on campus

When Jay Day came to Eastern Washington University to play football in 1991, he never would have guessed that three decades later he would be tasked with keeping the campus safe as EWU’s chief of police.

Day replaced outgoing Chief Tim Walters last week, who spent 15 years on the job and nearly three decades in law enforcement.

Handing over his beloved department to Day was something Walters thought about doing since he interviewed Day for a job more than 10 years ago.

“I remember he was very enthusiastic about becoming a police officer, but especially at Eastern,” Walters said. “He told me that he wanted to be the chief and that he wanted my job. And here we are.”

Day grew up as an “Army brat” for most of his childhood before his father retired and the family settled down in Tacoma for Day to finish high school.

In 1991, he came to Eastern to play football as a defensive back. In that first week of school, he met his future wife, Hope Perez-Day.

The couple has been married for 27 years with three children: Xavier, 27, Janessa, 26, and Sofia, 17.

Day played football until 1995 and was a member of the 1992 Big Sky co-championship football team – the first in EWU history.

After graduating from Eastern with a degree in therapeutic recreation, Day began working at a long-term care facility in Spokane Valley.

“All the things I have to do as a law enforcement officer I did in the nursing home, save for carrying a gun and all that,” Day said. “It was an excellent training ground.”

In 2008, Day was ready for a change and applied to the EWU Police Department. He thought it would be a great chance to reconnect with his alma mater and work closer to his home in Cheney.

“In applying, I don’t think that I really thought it was a law enforcement/ police job,” Day said.

The idea that campus police are glorified security is something Walters fought for decades and quickly made clear to Day.

“I found my calling,” Day said. “We get to basically police from the ground level. We’re very community-oriented.”

It was a surprise to Day how the preconceived notions many people have about police officers affected his work. As an athlete-turned-veteran Cheney High School football coach, Day was used to being able to interact with people from all walks of life.

“When I first got here as a police officer, for the first time in my life, people wouldn’t talk to me,” Day said.

Day and a fellow officer, Alvin Bermudez, decided it was time to change the perception of police on campus and took it upon themselves to do so.

“He was a military guy who said, ‘You know what? We’re gonna get out of the car, we’re gonna walk campus and if a kid looks the other way and walks away from me, that’s the kid I want to talk to,’” Day said.

After months of “shooting the breeze” with students on campus, Day said he started to see a change.

“Over time, the kids got more and more comfortable with us,” Day said. “They knew us as people as opposed to officers – to the point that they would call us directly on our phones as opposed to calling through dispatch if there was something going on.”

People-first policing is one of the core tenets of Day’s hopes for the department and the students it serves.

“They know when we show up that we’re going to treat them with respect and dignity and all those things,” Day said. “We recognize that they’re not finished products, they’re not who they’re going to be. We’ve all made mistakes, but because somebody allowed us an opportunity to make those mistakes, but still grow from that – we’ve turned into who we are.”

Day consistently worked his way up in the department, first being promoted to sergeant in 2014. About a year-and-a-half later, Walters came into Day’s office and said, grab your calendar, “we got to get you ready to do my job,” Day recalled.

He enrolled in American Military University online to get his master’s degree in organizational leadership and was promoted to lieutenant in 2017.

Then in 2018, when Deputy Chief Gary Gasseling retired, Day took over his role, managing the day-to-day operations of the department.

Two years later, amid an unforeseen global pandemic, Day officially became chief.

He said he is choosing to see the pandemic as a positive, allowing him time to adjust to being chief with fewer students on campus.

That doesn’t change the fact that Day “misses his kids.”

Sgt. Sean O’Laughlin will take on many of the deputy chief duties with Day’s promotion, but due to COVID-19 budget constraints, the deputy chief position will remain open. O’Laughlin came to EWU two years ago from the University of Washington. He is a reserve Coast Guard lieutenant commander

“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” O’Laughlin said of the promotion. “Both the chief and I want to respect the heritage of this place and the prior leaders, such as Chief Walters.”

Not only is O’Laughlin excited for his new challenge but to see the direction his friend Day will take the department .

“I think the coolest thing about Jay is he grew up in this community. He played football here. He went to school here. He’s been in this community since he’s been in college. His family lives here in town,” O’Laughlin said. “I think that he’ll do an exceptional job because he knows this community.”

Day’s installation as the chief of EWU Police, makes him the only person of color to lead a law enforcement agency in the area.

“I’ve thought about that a lot over the last several weeks,” Day said. “I realized that my platform is huge and I have a huge responsibility, not only as a person of color, but as the leader of a law enforcement organization.”

Day said after some reflection that during the national Black Lives Matter movement, he feels his department doesn’t have to change much because the department already has a people-first focus.

“We don’t treat people as what they’ve done,” Day said. “We see them as a person.”

Day is proud the department has been able to attract a diverse candidate pool, something he says makes students feel safer. Recruiting a diverse police force was something outgoing Chief Walters felt strongly about as well.

“It really has made a lot of inroads with us in our police department, with the students,” Walters said. “They’re not as guarded when they see somebody of the same color, right, or somebody that is reflective of their views or their perceptions, and it’s made our job a lot easier.”

When Day moved to Cheney he said there were fewer students from minority groups, but his interactions with police were for the most part positive. He hopes to provide the same experience to a now more diverse student body and to change their perception of police moving forward.

“When these kids come here, they become my kids and our kids and that’s how we treat them,” Day said. “When they see certain things or police talk to them a certain way, they’ll know that, you know what, that’s not how it’s supposed to be done. Because I know Eastern does it differently.”