The chameleon could take lessons from Rogers Stephens. Careers in both Special Forces and law enforcement made Stephens a master at the art of blending in with his surroundings.

Once upon a time, Stephens wore disguises and lurked in the shadows of war zones. Now, as a Hopkinsville police officer, he needs to be seen.  So his skills of adaptation are put to use in gaining the cooperation among the many citizens he is sworn to protect.

Police often see people at their worst: the grumpy driver, the nosy neighbor, the wannabe thug, the nervous informant. Each individual needs to be treated in a specific way to get the best possible outcome, Stephens says.   

When listening to someone, Stephens watches for behaviors that reveal whether a person is telling the truth or hiding it. Will the subject make eye contact? Does he talk too much? Does she talk too little? Are veins in head and neck popping a little?

Stephens says he spots a lie after only a few sentences.

Reading speech and body language also alerts Stephens to the best approach in dangerous situations. Recently, Stephens pulled over someone for blasting music too loudly. As the car came to a stop, Stephens could see the driver leaning over awkwardly into the passenger seat as if to rearrange something. He gave dispatch the tag and plate information and requested back up. When the second squad car arrived, he approached the vehicle.

The driver was shaking. There were signs of panic all over him, but it was important that Stephens keep his composure. Feeding panic could send a normally stable person into reckless and impulsive behavior. Stephens calmly asked for his license and proof of insurance.

While not letting the driver’s hands out of his sight, Stephens studied the passenger seat. A jacket lay across it in a peculiar way, not as if it were tossed there casually, but as if purposefully stretched to cover something. A search discovered a fully loaded .40-caliber gun and a criminal record. The suspect, it turns out, had good reason to panic. He was a convicted felon driving around with a stolen weapon.

But Stephens took him into custody without struggle. No shots were fired.  No injuries were suffered. Skillful observation and communication were sufficient to collect enough evidence for a search and a quiet arrest.

That’s not to say that all criminals can be taken painlessly. Some cooperate only after seeing that escape is futile. When a suspect tries to fight or run, the 55-year-old Stephens is happy to get physical.  The fugitive can be athletic and decades younger. Stephens will still give chase. And most of the time, he runs them down.

“I stay in pretty good shape,” Stephens says. 

In fact, it’s the chases and other hair-raising moments of policing that made Stephens fall in love with the job. He thrives on action. The element of danger is more of a perk than a liability.

“There were always two things I wanted to do when I grew up: join the military and be a police officer,” Stephens said.

In some ways, Stephens is still a little boy on a Georgia farm. His family couldn’t afford toys at the store. So clothespins became airplanes and crumpled paper became bombs to be dropped on imaginary enemies.

“I was always playing war,” Stephens recalled.

Hopkinsville Police Officer Rogers Stephens has been patrolling local neighborhoods for more than 13 years. Before that, he patrolled all over the world on special forces missions as a Green Beret.

He attended college because of a scholarship and earned a degree in psychology. But his career aspirations never wavered. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Army.  Within a year, he worked his way through Special Forces school and into the Green Berets. The next two decades were filled with secret missions to conflicts around the globe. Many assignments called for him to blend into the local population: dressing as they do, eating as they do, and living under their roofs. One memorable mission required Stephens to grow out a full beard and walk around in flowing robes. His acting job was so convincing that local people began to call him Egyptian. Even after he revealed to them that he was an American in disguise, they refused to accept that he was anything but an Egyptian. Not bad for a country boy.

The 5th Special Forces Group he was a part of relocated to Fort Campbell in 1987. As he neared military retirement, he began to look into nearby police forces.

He soon took at liking to Hopkinsville’s police reserves in 1995 and began volunteering time on the weekends. That led to his admission to the police academy, which he completed in 1997.

The same day Stephens graduated he reported to HPD to complete some paperwork. The force had been impressed with him during his reserve duty that they agreed to hire him. Then Hopkinsville Police Chief J.D. Lingenfelter asked Stephens how long a vacation he wanted because he had gone directly from the military to law enforcement with no break in between.

Stephens replied that he was ready to start immediately. 

“I was unemployed for two hours,” Stephens said.

Thirteen years later, Stephens is a veteran twice over. And he still ready to work. His schedule often puts him on duty for four days in a row and then several days off. And if he had it his way, every one of those shifts would be the evening shift.

“That’s my favorite time, when the bad guys come out,” Stephens said.

There is something deeply gratifying to Stephens about taking on those who do the community harm.

“I will protect people,” Stephens says emphatically.

But Stephens knows policing is more than saving the day. He embraces the educational and social roles of law enforcement. The community must trust its police force to cooperate with it.  Stephens spends a lot of his time fitting in: cultivating relationships and learning to speak to its various groups.

On patrol again, Stephens scans pedestrians and motorists with the unsleeping vigilance of a Green Beret. He recognizes a lot of faces. His eyebrows raise when it’s someone who he has history with. One hefty, middle-aged man smiles and waves at the cruiser. Stephens waves back and grins.

“That guy tried to assault me a couple years ago,” Stephens says. “But now we understand each other.”

A  vintage-model Buick passes. The driver isn’t wearing a seatbelt, so Stephens hangs a U-turn and closes on him with flashing lights. The Buick pulls over. There is a bit of a staring contest as the driver peers into his rearview mirror. Stephens calls in the plate numbers to dispatch and hops out. Stephens’s voice and posture become rigid and remain so while he gets the proper IDs and questions the driver about the seatbelt. His walk back to his cruiser is also serious. But as he gets on the radio, Stephens countenance changes again. The driver’s record is clean. And he was wearing a lap belt. The reason for the unbuckled shoulder belt is that there was none. The Buick was purchased recently and still in the process of being fixed up. Stephens returns the license with a smile. There will no citation, he says. Just an urging to get the car street legal as soon as possible. A few jokes are exchanged and it’s back to patrolling. Back to the job that never gets old and the streets that never stop changing.

Hopkinsville Police Officer Rogers Stephens sends a driver on his way after pulling him over for not buckling his safety belt.