Stamford Native Stands Guard on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill
CHARLES
Norwalk Hour
Jordan Zappala
Boston University Washington News Service
November 18, 2008
WASHINGTON – Connecticut native Charles Dunn stands guard for hours on a street corner here – keeping patient watch over the nation’s Capitol building. Daily, and without complaint, he endures extreme temperatures, wailing sirens and confused tourists – all in pursuit of his childhood dream.
Dunn did not grow up wanting to pitch for the Yankees, drive a race car or walk on the moon – he just wanted to protect members of the United States Congress.
Currently a U.S. Capitol Policeman, Dunn gave up the exhilaration of NYPD foot chases in favor of endless security screenings and the chance to join the prestigious Dignitary Protection Detail, a Secret Service-like arm of the Capitol Police responsible for protecting members of Congress. His dream of joining the detail is almost within reach now, and his words show he does not want to jinx it.
“I am honored to have this job,” said 30-year-old Dunn of his current position in the Senate Division of the U.S. Capitol Police. “People want to harm our government, the people who run the country. We’re here to protect them. That’s enough for me – I’m just hoping to do even more.”
According to his El Salvadoran mother, Blanca, who lives in Newtown, such sentiment is typical of the son she calls by his shortened middle name, Tony, to eliminate confusion between her only boy and his father, Charles Anthony Dunn Sr. Always putting family first, Dunn has long been the family’s protector, she said in a warm, melodic accent, and even now he calls home two or three times each day to check on his parents and three sisters.
“I had to encourage him to leave the nest, and I had to learn to let him go,” Mrs. Dunn said of her son, who attended in-state schools for both college and graduate school.
Dunn, who grew up in cities across southern Connecticut – from Stamford to Danbury – knew what he wanted to do early and went after it avidly. He earned his undergraduate degree in political science at Southern Connecticut State University, and started down the path towards a law degree, when the events of 9/11 changed his course.
“Before 9/11, national security was not talked about so much, and certainly not studied,” said the small, clean-shaven man with bright eyes and rich, tanned skin. “Given what I wanted to do, I thought law school was my best bet, but after [9/11] national security programs started to appear.”
So, in 2005, Dunn graduated from the University of New Haven with a Master’s degree in national security, and took his first job outside of Connecticut, in the 44th precinct of the New York Police Department. It was not exactly what his parents had in mind.
“Oh no, we were not too happy about that,” said his father, who works in the quality assurance department of Procter & Gamble in Stamford. “His mother would lie awake at night, and you just feared…you never knew when you would get a call.”
The two-mile section of the Bronx that made up the 44th Precinct, where Dunn was assigned, was home to a vast array of criminal activities that Dunn likened to a “Law and Order” episode. He learned quickly what it meant to stake your life on fellow officers – a camaraderie he had heard his father talk about when describing his Army days.
The elder Dunn, now 61, was stationed in Germany during part of the Vietnam War, and served as a combat medic and surgical technician. After returning home to Connecticut and working for a few years, he enrolled in the Connecticut State Police Academy but, at age 40, ultimately decided he was a little too old to be entering the field. The younger Dunn points to this as part of the reason he decided to pursue law enforcement, to “pick up where my father left off.”
The 44th Precinct also was home to Yankee stadium – the team that, by all accounts, remains one of Dunn’s great passions. His mother said he would sometimes call home when on patrol, asking what had happened on the field to make the fans cheer so loudly they could be heard blocks away. His father said he took a young Dunn to several New York Mets’ games at Shea stadium – something that still upsets his Yankee-fan son so much he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Despite the long, less-than-ideal hours (he worked the night-shift) and obvious danger (he said he felt bullets flying by him on more that one occasion), Dunn’s face lights up when talking about his one year with the NYPD, a year he said really taught him he could make it anywhere.
So, after proving himself on the NYPD, Dunn was accepted to the elite Capitol Police force in early 2007, undergoing weeks of testing, interviews, exams and polygraphs before eventually securing one of 48 spots – beating out more than 9,000 other applicants, he said.
With his new classmates, Dunn was sent to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia for three months of intensive training. According to a fellow officer, those several months of living with and relying on each other tend to reveal one’s true nature.
“[Dunn] was a complete professional,” said Derren Fuentes, an ex-Baltimore Police Department detective who joined the Capitol Police force at the same time as Dunn. “He was the person who’d be there to help, no matter what it was. We had new people taking tests, practical exams and there was never a moment when he wasn’t helpful, giving support.”
Dunn describes the training period as being one of the most exciting times of his life and it may be because during that training he met a local dental office manager named Emily Anderson, to whom he proposed a year later.
“I’ll tell you, to me she’s the best thing that could have happened to him – he’s all alone down there,” his mother said emphatically. “Anything could happen to him, and it’s good to have a sweet girl who cares for him. It’s time now anyway, he is 30.”
Now on his way to forming his own family, Dunn said one of the greatest lessons his mother ever taught him was understanding the value of a dollar.
“I tell my children, even if I had everything to give to them, I wouldn’t,” she said. “That’s not teaching them responsibility.”
He listened and learned well, according to his father, who said Dunn has consistently worked a lot of overtime, trying to save money for his greatest love: restoring old cars.
As part of a “car family,” where his father spent much of his free time restoring the blue 1968 Dodge Coronet he eventually sold to his son for “a good price,” Dunn caught the restoration bug, and now owns an orange 1969 Dodge Super Bee and black 2007 Corvette in addition to the Coronet.
“The funny thing is, before I met him, I knew nothing about muscle cars,” said 37-year-old Fuentes of Dunn’s passion. “Now I know about every tire and engine and name. He says he’s trying to swear off it – with the economy so bad – but not a day goes by that he’s not online looking.”
Dunn laughed at his friend’s comment, and said the cars would stay with him as long as he’s around, confessing he’d part with one only if he could pass it down to his own son, as his own father did with him.
But despite his potentially expensive passion, Dunn managed to save enough to procure a house for himself and new fiancée in suburban Washington, D.C. When his parents – who have been married for 35 years, after meeting in church – and sisters visit his newly-purchased Fredericksburg, Va., home this Thanksgiving, they will meet the extended Anderson clan for the first time, in preparation for next year’s late summer wedding.
And so, the facets of Dunn’s life appear to be falling into line – the single holdout remains his dream of being accepted into the Dignitary Protection Detail. But after all of his hard work, that dream may come into reach in the next few months, according to Fuentes.
A few spots in the coveted protection unit will be opening at the start of the 111th Congress early next year, Fuentes said, and Dunn will have the chance to finally grab the post he’s been aiming for since childhood.
“I’ve worked as hard as I could, and I take my job very seriously,” said Dunn, staring out the window at the Capitol. “I hope to one day make that leap.”
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