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By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 Submitted photos. Officer Ron Gladding with daughter Madden, 9 months old, at the California Peace Officer’s Memorial at the Capitol Building, Sacramento, May 8. “There’s nothing I don’t like about the Eastern Sierra,” said Mammoth Lakes Police Officer Ron Gladding in a phone interview from San Onofre where he was taking some time away from his badge to surf.
But his favorite thing about living here is his family, he said, although he also lives to golf, fish and mountain bike in his free time.
“We’ve been together 12 years and married for four,” he said. “I met [Erin] in Bishop through mutual friends. We went to the river and the rest is history.” Their daughter, Madden, is two months shy of one year old.
After graduating from Mammoth High School in 1995, Gladding moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where he attended motorcycle school. He then worked as a mechanic in Woodland Hills, Calif., before returning to Mammoth. Home again, he became interested in police work and decided to join the Santa Maria Academy. He first worked as an officer in Contra Costa County in the Bay Area before once again landing in Mammoth.
“It was more luck than planned,” he described of his current MLPD position. “I had some friends in the department and there was an opening.”
He’s aware that a lot of people have questions about the police department right now.
“We’re an easy target for people,” he said.
Therefore, one of his current projects is to pull together an open house at the police department for the 4th of July that would augment other community activities that day.
“So the community can come in and meet their police department and officers, see what they do and get an understanding and try to close that bridge or gap of confusion between the community and the police department,” he said.
“I would hope they would come and begin to see what we do, and why we do some of the things we do – it would educate them as to some of the things that they have questions about. And maybe it would silence a lot of the criticism that we’re getting from people that just don’t understand.”
As for some recent tough calls that he’s taken, Gladding described a knife-wielding incident on May 30 near the Westin Monache.
“There was a fight in a street in front of the Westin. A few of us ended up responding,” he described. The officers encountered a group that described a man who had pulled a knife on them.
“By coordinating all the guys involved, we were able to narrow it down and find the suspect up around Beaver Trail. It was really good teamwork and a scary call because there were a lot of people involved and the guy had a knife.”
It wasn’t just someone passing through, he said, but a true local. The incident involved alcohol, a wedding party and issues about the military.
“This guy didn’t like the military, and it started an argument,” Gladding said.
As for other tough calls in his career, he said in the beginning, they’re all tough.
The ones he finds the most difficult involve domestic violence. He puts a lot of energy into those calls, but at some point, usually the victim – either because of fear or relationship with the abuser – shies from following through in court, he said.
So the hardest part about his job is working on the cases where there isn’t a sense that there will ever be a final, positive result, as in domestic violence cases when the victim has second thoughts about prosecuting the abuser.
“You see these people do something wrong – one of the worst things, in my opinion, that people can do – and they walk,” he said. “And nine times out of 10, you know they’ll return to the same type of situation.”
Combatting cynicism was difficult at first, he said. “But the best way to do it is go out and do what you’re supposed to do and do it well. And realize that the outcome is not something you can control, because there are so many different dynamics. You just do the best that you can.”
As for what kind of change he has seen in the community where he grew up, he said it’s not as local as it used to be.
“It seems that Mammoth is so much more of a resort town now that it doesn’t have a local feel anymore.”
“You can’t please everybody so you need to get together and figure out the best thing for the town.”
As for his favorite aspects of working for the police department, he said it’s a layered answer because there are different senses of achievement.
“On an enforcement level, I like to help the community that I grew up in; there’s a personal attachment to the community, because it’s mine,” he said.
“Then, as far as working with the police department itself, there’s all the camaraderie. I work with a great group of guys. That can make it a lot easier to get through tough times.”
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