KING COUNTY, Wash. — As we head into Father’s Day weekend, the King County Sheriff’s Office is highlighting its “legacy teams.”
A legacy happens when someone follows in their family member’s footsteps in joining a college, organization, or job.
In KCSO’s case, there is a shocking number of duplicate last names on vest patches.
“If we got all the legacies back together, we could staff our own precinct,” John said.
Deputy Morgan Pavlovich and her dad, Sgt. John Pavlovich, say that wearing the same badge is the honor of their lifetime.
“It’s very rare to see a mother-daughter situation, but it’s even more rare to see a father-daughter situation,” Morgan said.
Even as a kid, Morgan knew she would wear the same uniform as her dad. She said she was always fascinated by her dad’s job and brought him as her show-and-tell every year in school.
“Every year for Halloween, my mom was like, ‘What do you want to be?’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? A cop!’ That’s what I want to be every year,” Morgan said.
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But her love and interest in the job didn’t stop there.
“When she was probably 12 or 13 years old, she started being very serious about it,” John said. “She always talked about wanting to wear the uniform.”
John took his KCSO oath in 1994, then, 30 years later, Morgan took the same oath for the same department. Now, they both patrol King County in the same uniform.
“There are times on scenes I look behind me, and I’m like, ‘Oh okay, my dad’s here, now we are good,’ I have a mentor here if I have questions,” Morgan said.
“I can’t say that I worry about her a lot; she was trained well, we talk about it constantly, and I know she’s aware of what’s going on around her,” John said.
While they work in different zones, sometimes they both end up on the same calls.
John says that on Morgan’s first day off probation as a KCSO rookie, he took an overtime shift just to be around if Morgan needed assistance.
“She does things in many ways better than I did at that stage. It’s been fun to watch and give my advice when I think it’s appropriate, but I still like to be around and proudly watch her work,” John said.
He tells us they ended up getting called to a Safeway for a man who was shoplifting and threatening the employees with a slingshot.
“It was funny to see her say ‘Ooo, we are going to go handle this one,’ but I said okay, let’s take our time, assess the situation, we’ll get in there and find out what is going on, but I think I know what this is going to be and it’s minor,” John said.
“We end up handcuffing him together, and he’s like, okay, I’ll write the summary, you got the report,” Morgan said. “We were partners, he wasn’t my dad, wasn’t my sergeant, he was my partner. We split the work, so it was cool”
At home and at work, always watching out for the other.
“Anytime I hear his call sign, or he hears mine, we pipe up, we get on CAD (dispatch), I’m like okay, where are we at, what is going on,” Morgan said.
On this Father’s Day, Morgan says she has a new appreciation for the KCSO Sergeant she first knew as Dad.
“I’m just so proud to be his daughter, to wear the same Velcro patch with our name on it, I’ll never change my name, I’m proud,” Morgan said.
Watch this story air live on KIRO 7 - Friday, June 19 at 11 a.m.
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