HIGH POINT, N.C. — After 21 years at the High Point Police Department, Major Petula Sellars is hanging up her badge and making way for a new generation of law enforcement.
"You have to get out of the way so new and more innovative people, younger people, can take the role and do bigger and better things," Sellars said.
Sellars has been serving the High Point community long before she became assistant chief, although she would be the first to tell you, that was never her plan.
"Throughout school and early college years, that’s not what I was going to do, I did not have aspirations to be a police officer I wanted to work in marketing which is what I initially went to school for," Said Sellars.
It wasn’t until her early-20's, when tragedy struck her family, that the direction of her life changed.
"I had a relative that was tragically killed when someone pushed a boulder over a bridge and it went through her windshield and she has a traffic crash and she ended up dying from that," Sellars recalls.
She took action -- getting a degree in Criminal Justice, working in the court system, then got into policing a worked her way up.
"Someone saw something in me and they recommended, you know, “I think you would be good for this position", and so you go to that position. And then someone else recommends the next step and someone says, "I think you would be good in leadership, I think you should go through this process," Said Sellars.
When reflecting on her initial thoughts when she accepted the role of assistant chief at the High Point Police Department, Sellars admits she was terrified
“Oh, I was scared to death! It’s no longer just you when you are not in leadership, you know, it’s you, but when you become a leader here you have a lot of responsibility and i think along the way, often, people don’t understand that the higher you raise the more responsibility you have – it doesn’t get easier," Sellars said.
Still, Sellars excelled and, overtime, became the highest-ranking women at the department.
"Clearly, police work is predominantly male, that’s always been the way, but it’s great to see the changes that are occurring and to see the opportunities that are afforded to women because we have a powerful voice here. We are not going anywhere, and we have value that we bring to the table," Sellars said.
Sellers knows her time is coming to an end at the department but, be it her work with Angels in Blue or just striving to make a difference in a community, she prays that that has been enough.
“I hope that i made a positive difference, a positive impact. And I hope that as for our community, I hope they understand, through me and all our other officers here, that we care about each other, we care about our citizens, and we just want our community to be a safer place to live and I hope my work here has been a part of that," Sellars said.