In June 2006 I was able to profile Gerry Castles and his daughter Rikki Castles-Zajicek, the Springfield Police Department’s first father-daughter cops. My favorite quote is when Gerry told me about seeing his daughter in her uniform for the first time and he flashed back to when she used to dress up in his uniform as a child.

The photo, taken by former SJ-R intern Dave Albers, is a favorite of mine, too. I love how Gerry is all buttoned up and seasoned-looking, and Rikki is young and fresh-faced.

Like father, like daughter / Two Springfield police officers form first pairing of its kind
June 18, 2006

Springfield police officer Gerry Castles was taken aback the first time he saw his daughter, Rikki, in a police uniform.

“It was as if, ‘Why are you playing dress-up in my uniform again?’” he recalled thinking when he saw her standing with other cadets at graduation from the police training academy. “There’s just an overwhelming sense of pride. It’s really crazy. It’s strange, and I like it.”

Gerry Castles and his 25-year-old daughter, Rikki Castles-Zajicek, have the distinction of being the first father-daughter officers with the Springfield Police Department. There have been numerous fathers, sons and brothers on the force at the same time, but this is the first time the department has had a father and daughter, according to police officials.

Police work runs in the Castles family – Rikki married Springfield police officer Tim Zajicek on June 26, she has a cousin who is an officer in Idaho, and Gerry’s great-great grandfather, H. Scott Castles, was Springfield police chief in the early 1900s.

Rikki, 25, a Lutheran High School graduate, earned an associate’s degree from Springfield College in Illinois and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. She was going to pursue a master’s in teaching but changed her mind.

“I think growing up around it, I never thought I wanted to do (police work). There’d always be cops around our house, and I’d think, ‘Why would I want to do that?’ I wanted to do something different,” she said. “So it was a shock to me.”

Gerry, 49, a Springfield patrol officer for 12 years, works the midnight shift and is part of the department’s emergency response team and its honor-guard unit. He’s also a field-training officer.

He carries a laminated wallet-size copy of Rikki’s birth certificate with her baby photo on it in his uniform pocket.

He said Rikki initially didn’t go around telling everyone she was interested in becoming a police officer.

“I think she’s a lot like I am – if I’m going to go for something, I don’t talk to anyone about it until it’s time,” he said. “I never in my wildest dreams thought she’d go for it. We used to sit around and tell stories about work, and she’d say, ‘Stop all this cop talk.’”

Rikki said her father was excited when she told him she decided to join the force. He called her once a week while she was at the training academy to see how things were going.

“He loves his job. It’s his life. Everything is police with him, which is good,” Rikki said. “We’re very close. We’re really alike in a lot of ways.

“You wouldn’t think it, but he’s a really sensitive guy. I really respect that. A lot of things he does I don’t agree with, but I really respect his personality and his sense of humor.”

Gerry said Rikki listens to all those “cop stories” now, and he’s looking forward to patrolling with her after she finishes her field training. He said Rikki has a lot of compassion, and that will make her a good officer.

Neither is worried about family ties getting in the way of doing a good job.

“I try to convey to her, ‘You’re going to have to stand on your own merits, and there are going to be some expectations there,’” Gerry said.

Rikki said she hopes her colleagues won’t think she got her job because of her dad.

“That was my worst fear when I took the job,” she said. “People think that I’m going to ride on my dad’s accomplishments. I don’t think that at all.”