Lamar Kashat Brings Chaldean Culture to Sterling Heights Police
By Paul Natinsky
Sometimes a career change can happen before a career even starts. Such was the case for Lamar Kashat, a would-be pediatrician who is now a police sergeant with aspirations to be the top cop in Sterling Heights.
“Being from a Middle Eastern background, my parents had always driven me toward the medical field. I have five other siblings, so they always had a plan on what every sibling was going to do,” said Kashat, whose parents had him slated for a career in pediatrics.
But despite the careful planning, Kashat’s parents did not count on their son’s long-held fascination with police work.
Kashat, 39, says he always had an interest in law enforcement, from the time he was young and working in his father’s Saginaw convenience store, chatting with the police officers who stopped by.
“Their professionalism and demeanor is what attracted me to the job,” he says. An appeal enhanced by viewing police shows on television and movies with police storylines, such as “Colors,” a 1988 Los Angeles police drama.
Still, Kashat might be treating earaches and sore throats in 10-year-olds if it wasn’t for a community college tutoring session and a science instructor who dispensed life-changing advice.
A Fortuitous Encounter
“I had this chemistry teacher, Mrs. Peck, and one day we were sitting in the library, and she was tutoring me, and she could really see that I was not interested in the material. She just asked me—she said, ‘You really don’t want to do this, do you?’ I said ‘No, I don’t.’”
She shared that she too had aspirations of entering police work, but when she was in school it was much harder for women to travel that career path, so she ended up a teacher.
“She said you need to do something that you are never going to regret,” said Kashat. He closed his book, left the library, and enrolled in Saginaw Valley State University, majoring in criminal justice with a minor in psychology. He went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Administration.
Along the way, Kashat completed his training in the police academy and landed his first law enforcement job at the Frankenmuth Police Department. He then made a move to his native Saginaw and served that community for seven years.
With the Saginaw area facing hard economic times and budget cutbacks, Kashat began to explore other options. It was at that point that he went on a “ride along” with the Sterling Heights Police and was called into action as a civilian translator.
Shortly after, in 2015, Kashat was hired as the first Chaldean speaking officer in Sterling Heights, a community with a sizable Chaldean population.
Troubleshooting
Working the road patrol division brought him face-to-face with some of the issues confronting the community. Kashat’s experiences on the street with SHPD showed him that crime victims often did not understand the options for help available to them. All the forms were in English, and many of the injured parties had a tentative grip on the language.
Kashat went right to work, assisting in translation, diffusing conflict and building programs. Working with the Chaldean Community Foundation, Kashat implemented the first domestic violence form that was translated into Arabic.
During this time, Kashat was asked by the chief of police to become the department’s community police officer. Kashat has recently been promoted to sergeant.
“It has caused me to take a step-back approach, to develop a wider-angle sense of problems. If I was to give any advice to officers dealing with people in the community, the best thing I can suggest is there has to be a familiarization and an education about why Chaldean people respond to certain circumstances the way that they do.”
A Family Affair
“For example, it is a 100 percent understood fact that if a Chaldean community member is involved in a traffic crash or serious incident within the Chaldean community, that within minutes you will have 20-plus family members on each side responding to the scene.
“For some (officers) this can be very overwhelming. For you and I, one of our relatives gets into a traffic crash, we make a phone call, ‘Honey, I’ve been involved in an accident.’ ‘Okay, I’m on my way to pick you up.’ You may have your wife or other relative show up. Not in the Chaldean community; you will have carloads show up.
“In Iraq, (confidence in) law enforcement is significantly diminished. For the older generation, they do not view law enforcement as problem solvers. It’s not that they don’t trust them. It has nothing to do with trust. In the Chaldean community, they solve their own problems.”
As a member of a community he is policing, in which there is a language barrier for the rest of the police force, Kashat walks a thin line. He works hard to be trusted by both his fellow officers and the community.
He works to ensure the community members understand what the police are trying to do, while, at the same time, keeping police informed when individuals under investigation are using the language barrier to conceal, for example, the location of a gun.
“I would recommend that officers have a deeper understanding of why the culture is assimilated the way it is, which has changed greatly with the newer generation, the generation that grew up here and are attending the schools. But we have a lot of these families that were raised in Iraq or came to the United States when they were very young, and they have raised their children with those values.
“I would really suggest that patience be one of the biggest virtues. When you see the inability of these community members that we encounter to understand what you are asking of them…In terms of following processes there is a delay,” said Kashat.
As an ambitious man, Kashat’s drive for educational achievement and career advancement are partly driven by a friendly rivalry with his wife, who is an attorney.
Kashat now has three children and 15 years of police work behind him. As he looks to the future, he looks forward to putting in his 25 year on the SHPD and maybe landing behind the chief’s desk.