LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- LMPD Officer Amber Ross has worn her badge proudly for more than three years.
Sometimes, you'll find her spending a little time on the hardwood with kids, but more often, you'll find her on the streets.
“This is my favorite police officer, y’all,” said one kid walking home from school in the Newburg neighborhood.
Officer Ross is a part of LMPD's new Community Policing Unit.
She and nine other officers spend their day going door to door in different neighborhoods developing relationships with people beyond the uniform.
“I like to be on a first name basis with people. I don't want them to get too uncomfortable and have to call me Officer Ross, I want them to say hey Amber,” she explained.
Sometimes these streets are all too familiar to Amber.
“My mom had me at 19 and we had to live in the projects for a little bit.”
It’s a part of her life that many can relate to.
“I, too, like some kids out here grew up without a father. My father was in prison for 13 years,” she said.
Amber is now a single mother, raising a son on her own.
“Landon is nine years old and he is the highlight of my life,” she said with a smile.
Of course, he's pretty proud of his mother, too.
“When I pick him up in my uniform from school, all the kids are like, ‘Landon, that's your mom? She's a police officer, oh my gosh,’” she said.
She says she works hard every day for her son and to reach other kids too.
“I can be out in the open more and hope to be able to change lives and have an impact and let them know hey because you come from this type of area, you have to learn how to rise above it,” she said.
She is also part of a mentoring program called No Girl Lost that focusses on 7th and 8th-grade girls. The program is expected to enter five schools in Kentuckiana in January 2017.