Even the most ethnically diverse cities only have a handful of Asian American officers on staff. The Miami Police Department told us, “We have Orientals here, but they’re not Korean.”

With few pioneers before them, Korean American law enforcement officers are working in environments that are just starting to evolve from predominantly white male institutions. Finding five officers in this uncharted territory and all in different locales, we couldn’t help but ask: What’s it like to be a cop in your town?

Chief Matt Haney

Bainbridge Island, Washington

The way Chief Matt Haney describes it, Bainbridge Island is an idyllic location for anyone who’s had enough of big city crime.

“I think someone ran the numbers a while back and they said over 80 percent of the island is undeveloped, and the city’s bought huge chunks of the island up just to preserve it,” says Haney, 51.

About 35 minutes west of Seattle, Bainbridge is just 28 square miles, with a population of 22,000. Known for its miles of shoreline dotted with expensive waterfront properties, it has a rural, small-town feel. For this reason, many choose to live in Bainbridge and commute to Seattle, while city folk looking to escape for a day will ferry out to the island (Bainbridge has the second largest ferry in the nation after Staten Island’s).

After working 13 years in the King County sheriff’s office, Haney’s beat now is something quite different; and it’s a welcome change.

He used to work in homicide and was the lead detective on the task force that arrested the serial killer who murdered more than 50 women in what became known as the Green River homicides. It was a job that earned him some accolades, but Haney says that now he prefers to head up his department of 29 people. These days, most of the crimes he contends are property- or drug-related.

“Here I get to interact with regular police officers. There’s not a whole bunch of layers of authority,” he says. “I still get to run the department and make sure that everyone’s safe.”

And where he once was wary of people knowing too much about him or his family, Haney is now embraced in a community where everybody knows him by name.

While Officer Tung Nguyen of the Dallas Police Department doesn’t speak Korean, he often has to work with the Korean community. “I can pretty much understand their broken English. I’m used to my dad,” he says. (photo courtesy of tung nguyen)

“I can’t go into any store without somebody saying, ‘Hi Chief, how’s it going?’”

The downside to the neighborly environment is that every incident the Bainbridge Island Police Department handles almost certainly involves someone that Haney knows and knows well, like the victims who were involved in several car accidents that happened last year. And sometimes people he knows will want him to grant special favors. Haney, however, has no regrets and says that he plans to close out his career on Bainbridge.

Since he became chief of police two years ago, the small Korean community on the island has taken an interest in him, and a few have been eager to help him learn Korean. When Haney made plans to return to Korea for the first time last year (he was adopted at age 4), the Korean community couldn’t have been more excited.