Behind the Badge
Stefanie Rose was out running errands at Target when she unknowingly dropped her wallet.
A man passing by found it; instead of returning it, he decided to steal it.
However, what the man didn’t know was that Rose was a police officer in the state of New York.
“Because our department is a little smaller, we’re able to do our own investigations…so when this person stole my wallet, I was able to do an investigation and I actually tracked him down,” Rose said. “He ended up being arrested and I was so proud of myself like, ‘Gosh, I actually cracked that.’”
What most other people wouldn’t know is that in between night shift patrol for a law enforcement agency in New York that she preferred not to identify, Rose runs a successful YouTube Channel as a beauty and lifestyle vlogger. Collectively, she has more than 16,000 followers.
Photo courtesy of Stefanie Rose
Back in 2015, when Rose started her YouTube channel, she never intended on talking about her career in law enforcement. Rather, she planned to use the platform as a creative outlet to highlight her hobbies, which include makeup and fashion.
After just a few years of creating video content, she ran into a problem.
“I noticed that my channel wasn’t really growing because in the beauty industry there’s just so many people that are trying to make beauty videos,” Rose said. “I noticed that there weren’t really a lot of female police officers that were doing videos.”
For the first 3½ years that she worked as a police officer, Rose kept her career very discreet due to the backlash and scrutiny that law enforcement was receiving.
Photo courtesy of Stefanie Rose
“A lot of people talk about race and I can honestly say that I do not see color. If you are acting in a manner where it deserves more attention than someone else, then that’s what you’re going to receive,” Rose said.
With slight hesitation, Rose decided to upload a video focused on policing.
Although nervous, she realized there could be huge potential in trying to educate the public on what law enforcement does.
“I would go to my parents’ house after I got off work and my dad would have the news on and there would be all of these negative stories [about police officers]and I was so sick of it,” Rose said. “I thought, ‘this is ridiculous because I don’t act like that, I don’t treat people with disrespect, and I don’t want to be lumped in with everyone else. It’s not fair.’ So, I just wanted to get my word out there that, yeah there are (some) bad cops, unfortunately, but to show that we’re not all like that.”
Photo courtesy of Stefanie Rose
Rose decided to upload a 10-minute video called Night Shift Police Officer Routine in which she walked viewers though her night patrol shift.
She expected the video to be a hit or miss.
The video took off and has since been viewed more than 200,000 times and gained over 3,000 likes.
“After that video, so many people were commenting positive things and saying that I inspired them to go into the police academy and I’m so grateful for that because I really wasn’t expecting it,” Rose said.
After the success of her first law enforcement video, Rose set out with two new goals in mind for her channel:
To spread more positivity about law enforcement and to show the public that officers are just normal people by continuing to upload beauty and lifestyle videos as well.
Photo courtesy of Stefanie Rose
She has since uploaded 14 videos with topics pertaining to law enforcement.
While Rose loves working as an officer, she explained that the job comes with its own set of challenges as well.
“The government kind of restricts certain things that we can do, and they change laws which makes it harder for us to actually do our job correctly and do it efficiently,” Rose said.
“As a police officer, we want to try to at least see some kind of change in the community. When we put so much hard work and dedication into effectively making an arrest and then we turn around and then that person is back out on the street, that’s so frustrating.”
In addition to making positive changes in the community while policing, Rose hopes that her YouTube channel continues to educate people about policing and the career she loves.
“Police work in general has taught me so much more about life,” Rose said.
