Just five days after her 13th anniversary with the Carroll Police Department, Sgt. JJ Schreck retired from the force. She says this was not part of her original plan. She had anticipated spending her entire career with the department, but an unexpected health issue meant she had to rethink that goal.
This change, Schreck says, is all about her physical safety and quality of life.
Schreck says she knew as a child that she wanted to become an officer. Her father was a deputy in Buena Vista County for her entire life and he just retired after 34 years. It was this role model that formed that career desire as a young girl.
But even though she knew what she wanted to do, her father tried his best to dissuade her from taking that path.
Former Carroll Police Chief, Jeff Cayler, was a professor at Buena Vista University and actively recruited Schreck as she graduated in 2007. She says her grandparents lived in Carroll, so she was familiar with the community and thought it was the ideal place for her. She started her law enforcement career here, coming as a single woman and meeting her husband, BJ Schreck. As she looks back over her 13 years, she says one of the things she will miss the most is working with the residents.
The one thing she says she looks back on and takes to heart are the people she feels like she could not help. Because that was a pivotal reason for becoming an officer, she had a hard time walking away from individuals going through a difficult time and who ended up caught in the system, but were not yet ready to take the steps necessary to change that trajectory. And as she leaves the department, she says she could not have asked for better co-workers.
Schreck says that she is taking some time to determine what is next, and she hopes to find something that will keep her as happy as she was working with the police department. Right now, she is spending time with her husband and their four daughters; Ellee who is 10; Jolee who is six; Callee is five; and Kynlee who is three.
