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Lexington, Kentucky — Some employees may feel that they are overworked, while others may feel that they are not doing enough. Lexington Police Department Det. Kristyn Klingshirn is the type of employee who subscribes to the latter. 

The 39-year-old Klingshirn is the recipient of the SPOKE Award issued by the City of Lexington in 2021. The award is designed to recognize skilled, professional, outstanding, knowledgeable and outstanding ( SPOKE) employees.     

The married mother of three children and a native of Pittsburgh began her law enforcement career after serving in the US Marine Corps nearly eight years ago. She was nominated by other members of the Robbery and Homicide Group of the Lexington Police Department. For the past four years, she has been a member of the homicide group.

In addition to the senior management survey, Klingshirn is also a member of the guard of honor of the department, actively recruiting and recruiting, organized Shop With a Cop to provide toys and gifts to hundreds of children during Christmas, and took the lead in providing 150 children with back-to-school activities in the community Buy backpacks and school supplies in China.

Klingshirn said she was a little shocked by the award. 

“Most of the people I work with are men — we also have a woman in our unit,” she said. "I'm not saying it sounds bad, but they are not necessarily the kind of people you think will consider award nominations or something."

Detection Steve Cobb is a member of the LPD homicide group and a 20-year law enforcement veteran. He is not surprised by Klingshirn's honor.

"She comes from a service family," he said. "She is a policeman. Her husband is a firefighter, and both of them served in the Marine Corps before. I remember when she was in the academy. She entered there from the beginning, and was concerned about what she was doing. Very humble and ready to learn." 

Cobb said that even early in Klingshirn's career, she would work with other units to do things that most rookie police would not do. She moved quickly among the various teams, from the patrol team to the violent crime department, to the robbery department, and recently to the murder department. 

"In terms of her time in the army, this is unprecedented," Cobb said. "This just shows her professional ethics, but it's even second only to the amount of work she does outside the police station. For the past three years, she has been working on our Shop With a Cop program, which is a A daunting task, but she has never rejected anyone. It is never too late or too much or too much. She does everything she can to make it work, including helping people outside the plan. She is working with various other people To ensure that the children are taken care of. For most people, this adds an already full plate, but it shows her sense of service and the fact that she is willing to handle these things to help others. She always puts Putting herself at the end, this may be her only weakness."

Klingshirn quickly attributed her achievements to her colleagues and clearly cited their help with her backpack and school supplies activities. 

"I'm the kind of person who only goes shopping and fills up a backpack," she said. "They asked me how to do all of this alone, and I told them I would let my kids help. They helped me move everything in. We took it to the headquarters, set up a small assembly line, and helped me All the backpacks are filled and loaded into trucks. They nominated me, but in fact they did a lot of help for what I did."