Officer Michael Lucas serves SOCSD as SRO Sedona Police Officer Michael Lucas says he is eyeing a retirement in May 2027 when he hits his 20 years of service. Until that point he plans to be carrying on much the same as he has since becoming the Sedona Police Department’s School Resource Officer about a year and half ago.

“[My typical day] can run a gamut of things,” Lucas said. “Everybody sees me greeting the students at West Sedona and Sedona Red Rock High schools now. I usually spend my mornings greeting everybody. Depending on what meetings I have I attend meetings with school staff, be it the leadership or the crisis teams, just getting to know what’s going on with the student population. Where the day [is] going to take me depends on what issues students are having. I can be involved with any number of crimes or not crimes, but it’s mostly just [me] trying to solve problems and get [students] through their day.”

It’s a role that he’s always wanted to do but he added that there wasn’t much interest in the position among his cohorts when he went through police  academy training.

“I’m a big proponent of giving things back and being there,” Lucas said. “As a kid, I remember our school resource officer and whenever, they’d come and teach us the DARE program. … I want to be involved with students and give back to students and bridging that gap between law enforcement and students like the examples that were set before me. Then, as far as why I wanted to be a cop [in general] … It’s just always what, what I wanted to do since I was 5 years old. I told my dad, ‘when I grew up, I want to be a police officer,’ and that’s where we are.”

A typical day off for Lucas involves driving down to his home in Tucson to spend time with his wife of 10 years or archery hunting west of Green Valley.

“I’ve gotten to where I worked on cars way more than I should because I have fun with pack rats. They’ve eaten the wires out of a couple cars,” Lucas said. “I’ve gotten to where I worked on cars way more than I ever thought I would. But really [my weekends are] just hanging out with my wife and enjoying her company.”

Lucas added that he doesn’t think absence makes the heart grow fonder being separated during his work week.

“Everybody says that, [the distance] helps,” Lucas said. “ But we’re both just like, ‘I miss you.’ I mean, I’d be fine with spending every day with her. When I retire that’ll be what I do, I’ll spend every day with her. … Whenever the class of 2027 graduates, they’ll go on to college and I’ll go into retirement.”

Until that point Lucas will carry on with his routine that also involves answering a barrage of questions from students about law enforcement. To answer a few of the more common ones: No, he has never shot anyone and he hopes that will continue to be the case.

Sedona Red Rock High School

“‘How fast would I have to go for you to stop me and would you write me a ticket?,’” Lucas offered as another common question. “That’s generally the high schoolers’ favorite, because they’re starting to drive. Well ,I’m assigned to the school … [so] if I stop you, because I’m generally going home and not working on patrol, you probably well deserve a ticket in that case.”

SRRHS Vice Principal George Gleason added that he sees Lucas as a good fit with the high schoolers “which makes him good at his job.”

“He’s not what I’m used to as a typical police officer,” Gleason said. “He’s here to help the kids just like I am. So he and I working together is a pretty good team and I do appreciate that from him, because we need that here in this school.”

“We have a lot of kids that are coming into [SRRHS] some of them are transferring from Mingus [Union High School], other ones are coming from Cottonwood. I think they’re maybe used to a little different atmosphere at those schools and when they come here. I worked in the cities my whole life. So the police officer when they came rolling in, it was scary. He obviously can do that if we need it, but he doesn’t. The kids, they’ve really warmed up to him since I’ve watched.”

Gleason added that he feels the role of school resource officer creates a good atmosphere for the students.

“It’s not a fear thing like they would normally have with police,” Gleason said. “That’s a good I think introduction to a lot of these kids [to] an officer, somebody that actually cares about what they’re doing.”

West Sedona School

The same can be said across town at West Sedona School.

“His presence on campus in the morning during parent drop off has been beneficial to our school and promotes safety for all students, staff and families.” West Sedona Principal Elizabeth Tavasci said. “He and our school counselor, Karen Hughes, lead lessons throughout the school year with students in kindergarten to fifth grade about safety and safe behaviors.”

When Sedona-Oak Creek School District is out of session during the summer Lucas can be found on regular patrols in the city working the swing shift from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.

“Some aspects of dealing with kids are a lot easier than dealing with adults,” Lucas said. “I feel there’s a lot more respect whenever you’re dealing with kids than whenever you’re dealing with adults, who are having a bad day and the police are the last person they want to see. That creates its own challenge. But it’s probably helps because I get to know a lot of parents through the drop off [because] they know my face.”

Lucas also feels that some calls he responds to over the summer are a bit easier because the students recognize him.

“That kind of lets the parents know ‘OK, my kid knows this guy’ and it probably gives me a little bit more of an opportunity to break the ice and tear down that wall they throw up,” Lucas said. “They don’t want to see the police for a day, that’s human nature. That’s usually how people see us. … Most people put up that wall for whatever reason, I don’t know. But they put up that wall to not let you in and generally don’t want to talk a whole lot and so not everybody, but a lot of people do build up those walls.”

Building rapport with the community is one of the roles of the school resource officer and is part of what Lucas pointed out is how the position is often referred to as “an informal-mentor-counselor type role.”

Lucas said his years of experience have prepared him for juggling those different roles throughout the day.

“After so much time, the best example I can give you is that I had a student from [Northern Arizona University] that was working on [a] social worker degree,” Lucas said. “I took a call with her and it was a lady who was frazzled, because she was getting evicted. But she had almost everything in place other than the help to get her stuff moved. We talked through it all and at the end I asked as a social worker, ‘How did I do?’ She’s like, ‘First of all, why did you have that call? Why didn’t they give that to a social worker?’ I said ‘We don’t have one. That’s been part of my job for 16 years.’

“That’s one of the many hats we wear. We deal with people in mental crises if we’re the first one there. Then we call Spectrum [Healthcase] out to help us get them the services they need,” he said. “After all this time, it’s pretty easy feeling the balance. It feels easy to me to be able to switch roles and go from one to the other.”