Sedona Police Officer Joshua Jones, 52 will take over as the school resource officer when classes resume on Wednesday, Aug. 6.
Officer Michael Lucas, the previous SRO, will return to patrol duty as part of the department’s regular rotation. Jones describes himself as “a chill guy,” a mantle that Lucas also earned when the Class of 2025 named him “The Chillest” in their senior superlatives before the May graduation.
“Keeping the school safe so kids can learn in a safe environment and do their best, that’s the law enforcement and school safety aspect that I hope to provide,” Jones said. “But … it’s also about providing mentorship and leadership to kids as they go through adolescence. If I can be [a] role model and help guide them in the right direction, I’d love that.
“When I was in school, I had one or two teachers who made a difference and if I could be that person for someone else, that’d be fantastic.”
The SRO’s duties cover law enforcement for all Sedona schools and the salary is wholly paid by the city of Sedona, and not the Sedona-Oak Creek School District.
Jones grew up in the Mira Mesa neighborhood of San Diego, just north of Miramar Naval Base, before moving to Paso Robles, Calif., in 1989 with his parents where he graduated from Paso Robles High School in 1991. He earned a degree in wildlife biology and management from Humboldt State and spent several years working for government agencies, tracking birds and other wildlife across the West.
“Back then, it was all data collection, biology, so more on the research end of it,” Jones said. “At that point, law enforcement was not at all on the horizon.”
In 2004, Jones moved to Flagstaff with plans to pursue a master’s degree in forestry, but a summer gig as a Jeep tour guide in Sedona in 2006 unexpectedly turned into a 15-year career.
“[It] was supposed to be dumb fun for a summer,” Jones said. “Then I was like, ‘oh, this is cool.’ It’s good, easy money, good pay.’ I met my wife [Carrie] there, bought a house in 2008 in the Village of Oak Creek, when the economy took a hit. Married in 2009 and we had our daughter born in 2011. My wife grew up here. Her whole family is from the area, so I basically married a local gal, and [Sedona’s] been home ever since.”
At 47, Jones said he wanted a career change in 2021.
“I was an old, just an old guy that wanted to try something new,” he said.
Although it turns out that much of his natural history experience was drilled into him by the tour company and again while going through his police academy.
“I remember in the academy, they knew I had a tour guide background and you get pepper sprayed or tasered … they’re making you do push-ups asking you ‘what’s your name?’ My law enforcement instructors were asking me ‘Jones, tell me why are the rocks inSedona red?’”
“I told them what I told people on my tours while we were doing drills,” Jones said. “‘If you went back 280 million years ago, this was the coast of a big inland sea … imagine Saharan Africa with a couple hundred-foottall sand dunes along the coast … While that’s happening … the seas start to rise, and as these seas inundate the coastal dunes. They take the iron-bearing minerals within the sand, hematite, dissolve and put that iron in solution, and slowly seep it throughout the sand, coating each individual sand grain with a thin layer of iron oxide. Now, once that iron interacts with oxygen in the atmosphere … that turns it from iron to iron oxide, which is rust.’ I can’t believe I remember that.”
However, Jones’ main interest was not geology by ornithology.
“With a biology background, I was interested in it at all but especially birds,” Jones said. “Even when I was a biologist, I did a lot of bird research, so I’m kind of a bird geek.”
Jones enjoys playing guitar casually, describing himself as an “’80s brat” who taps on the fingerboard and sometimes revisits songs from his youth. He prefers local trails around Bell Rock, such as the Bell Rock Pathway, Baldwin Trail and Turkey Creek,often using these hikes as an opportunity to walk his French bulldog, Frankie. Jones admitted that one of his motivations was to get his French bulldog Frankie in the NEWS in addition to his two cats.
“All the calls you gets as a cop are interesting,” Jones said. “It’s funny. When you’re brand new, it’s all brand new and it’s all in your face.”
“I’ve always been an idealist, looking to do what’s right and help others. I won’t say I was naturally drawn to police work [because] that came later in life,” Jones said. “Everybody’s out for themselves, right? But maybe that’s part of what’s wrong with society and this is where being a role model comes in as the SRO [in] showing good behavior, setting a good example. I still think it’s worth it to take care of your fellow man and do good deeds.”
