And she has been known to support detectives in their criminal investigations.
For that, Smith, 30, who has been a dispatcher for nearly five years, recently was named the City of Middletown’s Employee of the Year, beating out 375 city employees.
“It was pretty good,” Smith said of the award. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
In his nomination letter, Detective Brook McDonald wrote that in August 2019, a Bobcat, valued at $16,500, was stolen. He wrote that a video of the suspect’s vehicle was posted on the police department’s Facebook page and tips from readers were generated.
He wrote that Smith went “beyond the scope of her duties” and due to her investigative work, her information led to the recovery of the equipment, along with an excavator valued at more than $50,000 and a trailer reported stolen several years ago.
McDonald thanked Smith for her “fantastic work ethic and support in this investigation.”
Smith, whose mother is from Mexico and whose father is from Puerto Rico, moved with her parents from Chicago to Middletown in 2006. She graduated from Middletown High School the next year.
She wanted to be a homicide detective, then applied to be a dispatcher.
Her supervisor, Shelley Meehan, called Smith “a caring” dispatcher who routinely goes the “extra mile” to assist residents.
“We like her,” Meehan said with a smile.
Smith likes her job and the city, too. She planned to return to Chicago after she graduated from high school, but now, “this is home to me.”
She has learned to separate her career from her home life with her husband, Chris. That wasn’t easy at first, she said.
When asked to describe “a good day” at work, Smith said: “When I leave here and all my officers went home safe.”
She rarely discusses work outside the dispatch center even with her family and friends.
“You don’t want to talk about other peoples’ problems,” she said. “All calls can be bad.”
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