{"id":1319639,"date":"2020-04-26T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=995963"},"modified":"2020-04-26T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T02:00:00","slug":"covid-diaries-ultimately-for-the-public-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/covid-diaries-ultimately-for-the-public-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID Diaries: Ultimately for the public safety"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"673\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-1024x673.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-1024x673.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-768x505.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-1536x1009.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/COLabRiflePD1-2048x1346.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>Rifle Police Officer Jared Bartunek and K9 Jax in Rifle, Colorado.<\/strong><br \/><em>Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><em>Editor\u2019s note: This is one of three vignettes highlighting individual Garfield County residents as part of the statewide COVID Diaries project.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Out on patrol, Rifle Police Officer Jared Bartunek hesitated to say the \u201cS\u201d word \u2014 slow.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s how it can feel these days.<\/p>\n<p>With a decrease in calls, Bartunek and his K-9 partner Jax were in his cubicle at the station finishing up paperwork April 16.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe hard part about this for a cop, at least for myself, I like being proactive. I\u2019m not someone who likes to sit back at the police department and type all day long. I don\u2019t want to get all my paperwork done, I want to go out and do something, I want to fight crime and protect the community,\u201d Bartunek said.<\/p>\n<p>In the weeks since COVID-19 became widespread in Colorado, Change has been constant for Bartunek and fellow officers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNever going through something like this especially as a police officer, but even as a civilian, not knowing with the orders coming down who is enforcing this, how is it enforced and to what degree\u201d can be challenging, Bartunek said.<\/p>\n<p>The nature of the calls they receive have changed as well, he added.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of uncertainty when it comes to stay-at-home orders, and when people see people without facemask nowadays, they are calling us,\u201d Bartunek said.<\/p>\n<p>Getting past the strange feeling of wearing masks for both his own safety and the public\u2019s, Bartunek recalls the emphasis on community policing during training. Of getting to know your community and making yourself known \u2014 something which becomes more difficult from behind a mask.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat relationship with citizens is one of the best ways to fight crime,\u201d Bartunek said.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:kmills@postindependent.com\">kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/covid-diaries-ultimately-for-the-public-safety\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rifle Police Officer Jared Bartunek and K9 Jax in Rifle, Colorado.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent Editor\u2019s note: This is one of three vignettes highlighting individual Garfield County residents as part of the statewide COVID Diaries project. Out on patrol, Rifle Police Officer Jared Bartunek hesitated to say the \u201cS\u201d word \u2014 slow. But that\u2019s how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-04 00:42:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}