PEOPLE

Officer 'Danish'

Staff Writer

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fficer Helena
Danishevskaya is
weaving through
traffic, speeding
to a family argu-
ment that will have to be
broken up.
She's sipping a can of pop,
calmly talking about how
she'll never have time for
dinner on her shift.
The call barely gets a rise
out of Officer "Danish," as
she is called by tongue-tied
fellow officers. She treats it
as routine — she's not the
highstrung cop you'd see on
some dramatic TV show.
Down-to-earth, easy-going
and often amusing, two-year
veteran Officer Danish
makes you believe that
police work is the easiest
work in the world.
It's not.
Just five minutes after
beginning her shift on what
was, in her words, a pretty
busy day, she stopped to take
an accident report. The acci-
dent, on 10 Mile Road, had
attracted a small gathering
of onlookers. It was a minor
scrape, so all Officer Danish
had to do was to get driver
reports of what happened,
and if necessary, to issue any
tickets for driving viola-
tions.
But getting the accident
report was no easy task. A
man who gave a description
of the accident — including
the care taken by one of the
drivers when making a turn
— later admitted that he
hadn't even seen what
happened.
Officer Danish took their
reports and did her best to
separate the half-truths
from the real events. A
Soviet couple wandered by
and asked the officer what
had happened. In Russian.
Not only is she a certified
police officer and firefighter,
Ms. Danishevskaya is
Soviet-born. She moved to
Michigan when she was 11.
Now, the 24-year-old gives
speeches to groups of elderly
Soviets on fire safety and
prevention and has become
something of a hero in the
Soviet emigre community.
"I just knew this is what I
wanted to do, even in

Russia," she said. Of course,
her parents encouraged her
to pursue medicine and en-
gineering, but fate won out.
Her father, now living in
Israel, and her mother, who
is no longer alive, learned to
accept their daughter's pro-
fession.
"You have to do things for
the right reasons," said the
officer. "You can't do things
for somebody else."
She went to youth
academies for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and
the Secret Service, then
went to Michigan's police
and fire academies.
Being one of very few wo-
men who was willing to fight
both crime and fires, she
received almost an immedi-
ate offer from Oak Park's
Department of Public Safe-
ty. In Oak Park, police offi-
cers handle both duties.
"They were the first to
call," she said. "But I'm glad
I took it."
Her language skills im-
pressed some police brass re-
cently when a group of
Soviet criminologists visited
Michigan to study American
crime-fighting techniques.
Officer Danish served as an
interpreter for the group.
Whether it's translating
important safety rules or
techniques, Officer Danish
uses clarity to make her
point.
"People go along when you
explain things," she said.
Later, during the same
shift, Officer Danish had to
question two shoplifting
suspects at Kmart in Lincoln
Center. The act was cap-
tured on film by the store's
security cameras, but there
remained one complication:
The two shoplifters were for-
eign citizens with a flight
out of the country in two
days.
The female shoplifter
began to cry when shown the
evidence, begging
forgiveness in halting Eng-
lish. The booty they tried to
take for free — two bottles of
moisturizer and a pair of
baby slippers — sat like a
scarlet letter on the floor of
the monitor room.
The shoplifter's father,
and accomplice, sat stoically,
chain-smoking cigarettes.
"They think that works,"
Officer Danish said. "Wait

Photo by Glenn Triest

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

EN ERATI •N

A young Oak Park cop is tough on the
bad guys and a heroine to emigres.

Officer Danish: Busy on the beat.

until I'm done with them.
Both of them will be crying."
Officer Danish didn't wilt
in sympathy for the
shoplifters. In fact, she
makes a point of not letting
suspects think she's any less
"man" than other police. In
her spare time, she lifts
weights just because "I don't
want to be a wimp."
Speaking softly, but
carefully, she warned the
shoplifters about showing up
in court before they left the
country. The female
shoplifter repeated her
claims of innocence.
Unruffled, Officer Danish
told them to get a ride home.
A busy night? You bet.
Oak Park is a safe area, but
Officer Danish finds herself
constantly breaking up

arguments and giving out
tickets.
She bought herself dinner
to take back to the station,
only to have one of the res-
taurant's patrons complain
to her about an assault.
After some words, an elderly
man had hit him in the res-
taurant.
With dinner on hold, Offi-
cer Danish took the man's
report and explained to him
the proper procedures for
making a complaint.
Later, she reflected on the
up-and-down life of a cop.
"You have to be diplomatic
about things. That way peo-
ple go along with you," she
said.
With the tough but fair Of-
ficer Danish, it would be
hard not to. ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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