Batavia Police veteran signs off after 30-year career

Tonight, John Zola is relaxing for the first time in 30 years as a civilian.

The Alden/Buffalo-area native came to Genesee County more than three decades ago as a GCC student and never left.

“It was the place for me to be," Zola said. "It really was. It’s my adopted city, but it was the place for me to be. I blended in well. I worked here well. I think I helped the community."

Community is a key word to Zola's style of police work. I've only known him for a year or so, but I noticed he was a guy who never stood behind his badge, letting it become a barrier to talking with people and relating to them on a personal basis.

The newfangled term for that kind of police work is "community policing." To Zola, it was "old-time policing."

"I think you talk to people, you learn things about people," Zola said. "Everybody is different. Everybody’s situation is different. Getting to know the community and certain needs of different neighborhoods and different families, getting to know your community, that’s what it’s about. That’s what small-town policing is all about."

Eventually, Zola will be replaced by a rookie and I asked him if he had any advice for that rookie, and Zola said:

"Take it for it’s worth. Like I said, it’s small-town policing. It’s getting to know your community. Help the people you can and arrest the ones you have to and move on. Never, NEVER, take yourself too seriously. I mean you’re a human being first. You’re a parent, you’re a husband or a wife second. You’re a cop somewhere down the road there. Don’t walk around with that badge on your chest all the time. Don’t get a heavy badge. Treat people the way you would want to be treated."

He said it's important not to get bogged down by what he called "the 5-percenters," the minority of people who cause problems. It's important  to remember that "95 percent of the people you come into contact with in this job are fantastic people."