Officer David Tyler McKinney is back keeping the city safe after spending 22 weeks finishing up basic training in Richmond.
“It was tough being away from home sometimes. I wouldn’t say it was particularly difficult but it was challenging. I made a lot of good friends. I met a lot of people from other departments and got a lot of resources to contact if I ever needed them,” Officer McKinney said of the training, which began in September of 2024 and only concluded earlier this month. Upon graduating with Class 554, Officer McKinney was also given the Most Improved Physical Training and Defense Tactics Award.
Since returning to Columbia, Officer McKinney has been on duty with Field Training Officer Jay Wilson and will continue to be so for the next few months. This is to acclimate him to the day-to-day life as a police officer until he is ready to patrol and respond to calls on his own. Working closely with his fellow officers, he says, has been a very valuable learning opportunity.
“You can go to the same type of call 100 times. Every time you go to that call, it’s going to be completely different than the last time you went to that situation. The scenario can have every single same element as the one before it and (still) be completely different,” Officer McKinney stated. “That has been the biggest challenge, (but) it’s the part I get the most enjoyment out of—just being able to learn. I’m going to experience a situation differently than another officer. Watching my colleagues deal with certain situations and learning from it, that’s been the biggest takeaway since graduation that I have had.”
Change and unpredictability are, Officer McKinney said, embedded in the fabric of law enforcement.
“Law enforcement changes not only every year. Every month, it can be completely different than what it was the month before. That’s the amazing part of this career is you’re never going to get bored with it. You’re going to have something new to deal with every time you go into work,” he said.
Officer McKinney has had plenty of opportunities to learn that. In addition to being on the Columbia Police force, McKinney is a sergeant in the 617th Military Police Company with the Army National Guard. The two careers, he says, have some overlap as both are police roles, and he is able to pull from his experience with one to complement the other.
So, what made Officer McKinney want to become a cop twice over?
One summer while he was in college, McKinney witnessed firsthand the police responding to a call and he saw how much they helped someone in need.
As it turns out, the officers also helped McKinney. McKinney was a graphic design major at the time and had recently come to terms with the fact that it was not for him. He had been struggling to think of what to do next when this incident occurred. Seeing the good that those officers had done made McKinney want to be able to help people in the same way. Not long after, he dropped out of college and joined the Army National Guard for the Military Police.
Since joining the guard, he has worked several jobs, but his dream was always to go into local law enforcement. “I put it off for so long because I would get deployed, and then I would be like, ‘I want to spend this year home.’ And then I would spend that year home, and then (I) had to deploy again. So, it seemed like every time I would get to that point where I wanted to apply and start seeking a career in law enforcement, that I had put it off too long.”
Finally, after a deployment in 2022, McKinney began applying to law enforcement departments. Columbia replied to his application a couple of months later—a big deal to McKinney, who said Columbia was the one he really wanted as someone who grew up in Adair County.
“This is my home,” he said. “The biggest thing I want to be able to do as an officer here is to give back to the community that raised me. And not only give back, but to protect it, as well.”
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
