Jonathan Muscato orders his usual large blonde roast coffee with a few ice cubes in it from Starbucks.His bulletproof vest protrudes more than normal through his Bloomington Police Department uniform.
He sits at a rectangular table where a police scanner whispers alerts in his ear, many about the homeless community in Bloomington.
Muscato, 33, spends most of his time engaging with individuals in the homeless community working as a senior police officer in the downtown resource officers unit for BPD.
“I enjoy seeing people get the help they need as opposed to just incarceration,” he said.
Muscato said downtown resource officers spend all day interacting with people who are experiencing homelessness and try to connect individuals with local services.
”I like the idea of helping people,” he said. “That’s kind of why I was geared towards this field in the first place.”
He said he feels his social skills have improved, and he has experienced things he would not know how to handle prior to joining law enforcement.
Muscato said the unit primarily encounters public nuisance crimes such as trespassing, public intoxication and disturbance calls.
He said there was a panhandling call about someone outside a business asking for money. In situations like these, he said there is a large chance that person is homeless, so he will try to connect them to resources like Shalom Community Center, Wheeler Mission Ministries or New Hope for Families.
Forrest Gilmore, executive director of Shalom Community Center, said downtown resource officers direct individuals to Shalom programs daily and he is appreciative of law enforcement for getting individuals help and engaging with them.
“I think one of the biggest things that’s important to learn is that everybody has to eat," Gilmore said. "Everybody has to sleep. We all need these basic things, and there’s kind of a connectedness in that. It’s all a part of being alive.”
Interacting with residents every day is one reason why he feels so connected to the Bloomington community, he said. Muscato said he likes Bloomington for its size and population.
“I feel like I get to have more of an impact than I would if I was in a larger city,” Muscato said.
Muscato has lived in Bloomington for 24 years after moving here with his parents, both of whom are retired police officers. He said growing up with parents who served in law enforcement inspired him to pursue the same profession.
“I’m sure there were times when I was a child that I had thoughts of other careers, but primarily, it’s always been police that got my focus,” he said.
Muscato joined the part-time Indiana University Police Department program for undergraduate students and the IU Police Academy simultaneously. Having graduated in December 2007 from IU, he joined the BPD force in January 2008.
Muscato said the best thing about his job is every day is different, and the hardest part is not knowing what could happen.
“The potential of something seriously dangerous occurring in the next five minutes — I mean, it’s kind of the unknown that makes it difficult,” he said.
