{"id":26616,"date":"2017-01-17T14:55:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T20:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=26616"},"modified":"2017-01-19T14:51:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T20:51:17","slug":"cross-makes-good-as-officer-in-hometown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2017\/01\/17\/cross-makes-good-as-officer-in-hometown\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross Makes Good as Officer in Hometown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When Keith Cross<\/b> graduated from Bemidji State University in 1992, he knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do there.<\/p>\n

Cross grew up on the “East Side,” an area of Aurora, Ill., where drug use and gang shootings ran rampant at the time. The temptation for most was to flee.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to work in the community in which I grew up,” he said.  <\/span>Impressed by a police officer who visited one of his classes when he was a youngster, Cross was determined to pursue a career in law enforcement.<\/p>\n

After receiving his degree in political science, he briefly worked as a police officer in Carol Stream, Ill., and Milwaukee, Wis., before joining the Aurora force in 1994.  <\/span>He soon became part of a new unit intended to establish better police-community relations in the Chicago suburb.<\/p>\n

“The new program was successful,” Cross recalled.  <\/span>“It was a very powerful tool for us.”<\/p>\n

He then became a resource officer at two middle schools, where he became more integrated into his old neighborhood.<\/p>\n

“This was probably the most gratifying job I’ve had as an officer,” Cross said.  <\/span>“I felt I really made an impact on some young people.”<\/p>\n

The department noted his success, promoting him to sergeant in 2005, lieutenant in 2008 and commander in 2016, a position below only the chief and deputy chief on the command staff.  <\/span>He now supervises about 200 officers in the city of 200,000 and leads the crisis intervention and hostage negotiator teams.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had an opportunity to realize my dream, and I couldn’t have asked for a more rewarding career,” said Cross, who lives in Aurora with his wife, Deanna, and one child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Keith Cross<\/strong> graduated from Bemidji State University in 1992, he knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[958],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26616"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26868,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26616\/revisions\/26868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}