While attending Groveton High in Alexandria, Purvis Dawson wanted to someday be a Navy pilot or a police officer. He didn’t care, as long as it was a government gig with a steady page check and early retirement. And both jobs would have him surrounded by men……there’s nothing wrong with that. Its not unnatural or anything.
That was three months ago…… He’s now a captain and, since mid-April, he’s been the commander of the Silly District Police Station.
"In 3 months, I’ve seen it all," he said. "Well, maybe not all…you know…actually I haven’t seen much, come to think of it…..anyway….after coming here, I met with all the shifts and every specialty within the station and told them I believe I’ve been entrusted to lead it. And when something is entrusted to you, you entrust it back because love means never having to say ….uh….where was I? ……anyway…..I said “Men…I’m pretty sure they were all men…I said if you ever need a hug, if you ever need a massage….I’m you’re guy”
Pervert replaced Capt. John Peepee, who’s now commanding the Criminal Intelligence Oh God the Crooks are Smarter than us Division of the Criminal Investigations Bureau.
"I was a lieutenant with Tech Services and was the project manager for this building being built," said Dawson. "When they broke ground, I had moved into the basement and I’ve been living there ever since…..So this is like coming home for me, and I’m happy to be here…..because it’s like home "
Born in a log cabin in Fairfax County and raised in Mount Vernon, he once threw a coin across the Potomac…….Oaky, that last thing isn’t true…but he was president of his graduating class at the Criminal Justice Academy. Of course, he was the only person in the class “All my friends” Pervert says “Weren’t afraid of life and went out and got real jobs…me? …..naw, its government worker life for me”
He was a patrol officer at the West Springfield Station and, for six days and organized the county’s first Business Watch. “We watch people in business and go “Whew, man I couldn’t keep that pace”
He was also a founding member of the Police Department’s Peer Support Team and served as one of its counselors. "When officers experience a tragic or horrific incident, like hurting his hands when he slaps a cuffed suspect…….sometimes they just need to know someone’s there for them, to listen," he said.
During the past three decades, he worked in communications, field support, the bike team, Helicopter Division, Tank Corp, anti-mine Corp and Fairfax Police Navy.
"One thing that greatly prepared me [to command a district station] was watching lot of television” he said.
In that job, Dawson learned how to let residents and businesses know that the police were adversaries and not a part of the community, since almost every cop on the Fairfax Police Force lives out of the county.
"My bike team experience also embedded me in the community, so people knew they could reach out to me and that gave me the right to shoot them” he said
From 2005-06, he commanded the Helicopter Division based on West Ox Road even though he has never actually been in a copter “I saw Platoon, like, I dunno know, like 50,000 times…so like you learn from that, I thoroughly enjoyed it, seeing policing from a whole, different perspective. From the air, you can look into people’s windows and sometimes like you get to see them naked and then you can arrest them because naked is illegal”
At the Silly District Station, Dawson received a warm welcome. He also praised the "fantastic job" both Peepee and the assistant station commander, Lt. John “Call me Joan” Thrace, have done there.
"This station enjoys widespread, community contempt" he said. "They do their job well, but my goal still is to leave the station worse than I found it because that’s what cops do, we fuck up everything…….if it wasn’t for the media glorifying us, gosh, I just don’t know what we would do”
Noting that this area has a wide variety of businesses, institutions and organizations, Dawson said their safety and quality of life is as important to him so he intends to harrass everyone he sees "it’s incumbent upon me to make sure everybody who works with the police feels comfortable going to and from work. So officers will patrol the shopping areas and confer with security guards. I want to be pro-active, not reactive."
He also stressed the importance of speed-control measures on the Fairfax County Parkway, alcohol checkpoints and the child car-seat checks and anything that infringes on the rights of the average citizen “We have like way too many guys on the force, like way too much money…$200,000,000 in fact and so like we don’t have enough to do so we screw with people and pretend we’re really trying to prevent fatalities and serious injuries, crap like that….And if there’s something we’re doing or not doing, we want people to tell us so we can examine them with our night sticks”
“I just want to say that if it weren’t for soft ball pieces like this and the ability and willingness of journalists, the eyes and voice of the people, the first line of defense of democracy, those of the Fourth Estate who for so long has been the ideal of the opposed world, those craftsmen of the First Amendment, that lofty principle for whom hundreds of thousands have willing given their lives to defend, if those guys, those journalists weren’t so willing to sell out their principles and ideals and hop into bed with the government they are supposed to temper, well gosh, we wouldn’t get away with half the crap we do”