By Katherine Brown

Sergeant Jason Cummings, 37, wasn’t always going to be a police officer. In high school, he was bored. One day, while he was skipping class, a school resource officer approached him and helped him determine that he was designed for law enforcement. Cummings, a Wilmington, N.C. native, joined the Kure Beach Police Department 13 years ago and “the rest is history.”

Cummings, along with his K-9 partner, Flash, considers himself a community police officer. He knows this is the job for him, and for Flash. “The dog understands when I put the uniform on it’s time to go to work,” said Cummings.

Cummings believes that policing in a beach community is a unique task, and he is more and more thankful each day for the support that he and the other officers receive from the Kure Beach community.

“Our approach to law enforcement is not necessarily the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. A lot of people translate police and police work as black and white when really there’s a tremendous amount of gray area that falls in this job.” Sgt. Jason Cummings