APD names Randy Vickers Officer of the Year
Feb. 1—The Athens Police Department recently named Officer Randy Vickers as the 2022 Officer of the Year.
Vickers, who has been with the department since 2005, thought they were joking with him at first when he found out.
"I like to help people, and I don't do it to, you know, get an award. I just like to be able to do it," Vickers told The News Courier. "It's just the satisfaction you get from being able to help someone."
He went on to say, "It's really nice to be recognized like that, but I just try to treat people good and I've been able to do that."
When he's not on shift, Vickers is at Athens High School.
"It's nice to be able to be around these kids and develop relationships," Vickers said.
According to Vickers, you can make a difference sometimes just by helping someone or saying hi.
"You just never know what they're going through," he said.
He told the story of a girl he encountered years ago who was having thoughts of suicide when he came across her.
"I seen her walking down the road, and I just stopped and said, 'Hey, how are you doing,'" Vickers reminisced. "I remember how me just saying hi to her, you know, how she told me I saved her life because she felt at that time she had nothing, no one cared."
He went on to say, "You just never know what just saying hi to someone what that can do."
"All of our stories don't end like that; we have to deal with some tough stuff," he said.
Vickers noted the tension around law enforcement at this time.
"There's a lot of stress right now," he said. "You're seeing these incidents pop up in different cities, you know, different police officers, and we're all not like that."
