Episode 7: The GVPD World

Officer Brandon Pengelley - Police Department, Grass Valley, CA

GVPD Mission Statement: The Grass Valley Police Department is committed to reducing crime and improving the quality of life in our community.

GVPD: Core Values: Dedication – Excellence – Partnerships.

GVPD Philosophy: The Grass Valley Police Department uses a combination of Community Oriented Policing, Problem Oriented Policing and traditional policing methods to provide our community with a high level of service. By partnering police services with community awareness we are able to reduce the overall impact of crime in our city.

GVPD Website: https://www.cityofgrassvalley.com/police-department

Kellen: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Striking Gold in the Local World. I'm your host, Kellen Lake, and today I'm joined with officer Brandon Pengelley of the Grass Valley Police Department. Brandon, thanks for doing this with us.

Brandon: Thanks for having me.

Kellen: So tell us a little bit about what you do on a day-to-day basis and why you chose your career.

Brandon: Currently I'm assigned to patrol. So every day I come to work and I respond to calls within the Grass Valley City Limits. I chose this

career because I wanted something different every day when I come to work and with this career career I have something different every day. No two calls are the same; Every day is different. You just you never know what you're going to get.

Kellen: I feel like that's the daily life of a police officer. You guys are responding to so many different things, is that overwhelming?

Brandon: It can be at times. Like you're going from a very serious call and then you're doing like public relations and and saying hi to kids and handing out stickers and then you're going to another serious call. So you just you just never know what you're going to get.

Kellen: Cool, cool. So something that I've always been fascinated in is Paranormal encounters and Supernatural encounters and especially in the police department. So was there ever a situation where you had a call and you went to a house and you just encountered something that you couldn't explain

Brandon: Yeah, so the last one I can remember was a couple weeks ago — Someone called in like at 2 am saying she thought someone was in her neighbor's house that was abandoned. She saw a flashlight in there so we respond. As we're pulling up we turn off our car lights so we we can see if there's a flashlight. We see a light in the house so my coworker and I get out of the vehicle; we approach the house; the front door is unlocked and opened so we announce ourselves; we make entry into the house. Once we get into the house we make another announcement. We heard footsteps — we thought were footsteps — walking away from us. We make more announcements and ask for another unit. We continue to clear the rest of the house; we clear the kitchen where we thought we heard the footsteps coming from; we cleared the rest of the house including all the bedrooms and bathrooms… No one was in there. All the rest of the doors and windows were locked but we heard footsteps and we saw a flashlight but there was no one in that house — So I'm not really sure what it was that night but I don't think it was a person.

Kellen: That's crazy. And it's interesting because it probably happens more than people think; especially to police officers. You guys see stuff all the time. When you left that call did you kind of have an eerie feeling for the rest for the rest of the night? Or what were you feeling after that?

Brandon: Yeah — the other officer and I were kind of talking about it and we were both very convinced of what we saw and like what we heard and then we were kind of mind blown that no one was in that house — We checked every nook and cranny of that house, double and triple checked and no one was in there. So it was it was very strange.

Kellen: That's crazy man. Well, last question for me is ‘what is something that you appreciate about Nevada County in particular? What is the human interaction like with other people that are just going around town? I mean do people wave to you? What what kind of stuff do you see just with regular people around town?

Brandon: Yeah so Nevada county is a very special County. The people of Nevada County are very supportive; they, for the most part — I think — like law

enforcement; they kind of trust us. People waved at us, they smiled at us when we're on a call in public. They're very very supportive and we appreciate that it's not like that for law enforcement in every city but Grass Valley/Nevada County… it's a very special place.

Kellen: Yeah we definitely are very lucky to be more out in the country and I feel like people are just a lot nicer in general out here. So, anyways, man thank you so much for doing this interview with us we really appreciate it and everything that you guys do to keep our community safe and our families safe.

Brandon: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Kellen: You’re welcome and, as always, check out my YouTube channel My Real Estate World. Thank you everybody and see you next time.