Beaumont PD Public Information Officer Haley Morrow at her desk Jan. 11, 2023
Beaumont Enterprise
Megan Zapalac, Staff writer
Growing up, now-Beaumont police spokesperson Haley Morrow watched former spokespeople Carman Apple and Crystal Holmes. She was impressed by the work they did, and how they got information to the community -- so much so, she thought she might want to grow up and have a job like theirs.
Additionally, Morrow, who celebrated her 10th anniversary with the Beaumont Police Department on Jan. 6, comes from a long line of department employees, as her father, brother and husband are all officers, and her sister works in dispatch. Since 2000, Morrow has watched her father work as an officer and even went with him on a ride-along for the first time when she was 18.
Yet Morrow started her career as a preschool teacher.
But after her brother joined the department, she decided that she wanted to “join the family business.” She eventually went to the police academy in 2013 and in 2014 was hired by the Beaumont Police Department as a patrol officer. She became a Public Information Officer in 2016.
“I knew that I eventually wanted to get in community relations. Even as a patrol officer, that was my primary focus,” Morrow said. “Of course, I was answering calls for service and taking reports and arresting bad guys and getting in foot chases and vehicle pursuits, but my heart was always community relations oriented. Any time that I had time in between calls, I would get out with kids that were at a park and hand out stickers and just talk to people.”
Morrow said that being in law enforcement was not always something that she thought she would do. Seeing her brother go through the academy and get hired by the department was a factor, but her biggest influence was her father.
Morrow loves that even when she is off duty, she gets recognized by people due to her interactions with the public. After Tropical Storm Harvey, she started getting recognized so much more due to national and international news coverage, that she started a Facebook page to give the public insight into law enforcement so that she could use her personal profile as part of her “private life.”
“I make posts every now and then that are sometimes sad but things that I think are important for people to know that police officers are people too,” Morrow said. “They experience death and destruction and just evil on a daily basis and can take its toll.”
Morrow said that people have some misconceptions about being in law enforcement. They think that officers are not affected by what they do. But people get into the field for many reasons, such as past experiences and the desire to help others. They even have officers who were victims of a crime themselves, which ultimately led them into the field.
Even if they have been at 100 homicide scenes, a seemingly small detail can come out of nowhere and affect an officer for the rest of their lives.
“Just recently there was a case that affected me, and it was surprising. That's one of the things about mental health or being in law enforcement -- it's usually the things that you wouldn't think that affect you,” Morrow said. “We see the death and destruction on a daily basis. Sometimes it's the very small things like hearing a victim's phone ring on a homicide scene. That's something that you wouldn't think would affect you, but sometimes it just does.”
According to Morrow, the department has come a long way in focusing on officer’s mental health, and it has a “great” peer support program, which was not a thing “back in the day.” In the past, officers largely had to pretend that the job did not affect them.
To cope with the challenges, Morrow has turned to her faith and prayer in church while also going to therapy once a month. She also leans on her husband and other family members in law enforcement.
She also recommends those considering getting into law enforcement to stay off social media when possible.
“Unfortunately, as a PIO, that's not something that I get the luxury of doing,” Morrow said. “Early in my career, I wanted to go and defend us every time I saw a negative comment or something that was just grossly misreported or blown out of proportion or just a misperception. I don't do that anymore, because there's always going to be people out there that don't like police or that have misconceptions, and whether you try to educate them about it or not doesn't always help. That's just part of it."
Morrow believes that being a police officer can be the “greatest job on the planet,” but she acknowledged it is a calling. It's not for everyone. Officers get a front-row seat to “mind-blowing” and interesting circumstances, but at the same time they see a lot of sad situations. So, it takes a certain person to be able to do the job.
She hopes that by the time she retires, she will know that she has made a positive impact on someone’s life.
“I think as a society as a whole, we don't tell people how much they mean until they're gone,” Morrow said. “It's the funerals when everybody comes out and talks about how great of a person somebody was,”
Morrow recalls a time when she got a call on her radio about a domestic disturbance, and a child was at the scene. When she got there, officers were already handling the actual disturbance, but the little girl, who was about 4 years old, was terrified and screaming. Morrow then went over to the girl, who then jumped into her arms, and tried to comfort her by giving her stickers and trying to distract her until the situation was resolved.
The two have stayed in touch, and Morrow brought Christmas toys for the girl one year as part of the Blue Santa Program. Whenever the girl sees a Beaumont police officers at events, she asks, “Where’s my Officer Haley?” and the officers typically call for Morrow over the radio.
“I want people to know that I'm no hero. I work in my office Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and while I respond to scenes to handle media after the fact, our patrol officers are really the ones who are out there putting themselves in danger,” Morrow said. “They're the ones that are responding to the calls when people need help. They're the ones who are out there putting their lives on the line and being in danger. My goal is to always represent them and make sure that people know that they're the ones that are out there, doing all the hard work and keeping citizens safe.”