June 16, 2023 1:56pm
A Tempe police officer crowned Miss Arizona USA hopes her platform can inspire others and bridge the gap between law enforcement and communities across the nation.
“I’m hoping that with this title, people can see me, see that I’m a police officer and just know that all law enforcement have families, they have other hobbies that they’re interested in,” Candace Kanavel said on “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday.
“I think if we, not strip ourselves of the uniform necessarily, but we see past it and we get to each other on a human level and have empathy with each other, I think we’re going to start to bridge that gap between law enforcement and the community.”
Kanavel won the Miss Arizona USA crown last month and will go on to represent her state in the Miss USA competition later this year. She has been competing in pageants for 11 years and vied for Miss Arizona USA six times before winning the title.
“The funny story about how I started is I was attending a shop with a cop event as just a volunteer, and I saw a titleholder that was there and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing. I want to do that,’” she shared. “Now I’m a police officer. So it came full circle, which is really cool.”
Kanavel said she first considered becoming a police officer after taking a criminal justice course in college. Her professor was a former Phoenix police officer who introduced her to someone at the Tempe Police Department.
“I started working there as a civilian. And then I saw the impact that you can have as a police officer in the community. And I was like, ‘Yes, I want to do that.’”
“We couldn’t be prouder of Officer Candace Kanavel to represent our police department,” a statement from the Tempe Police Department said. “From being a police aide to a great patrol officer she has continued her growth through determination and hard work. She’s a role model, and as her hashtag states, ‘Yes, she can.’”
Kanavel acknowledged a “strain” between law enforcement and the community growing in recent years. She hopes her title can humanize officers and show men and women in uniform also have passions and hobbies when they are not wearing the badge.
“We all have other things that we’re doing, and I think that’s a great way to connect with our community,” she said.
In addition to bridging the gap between police and the community, Kanavel is using her platform to empower young women. She launched an initiative “Yes, she can” to promote “confidence and capability in women.”
“So through this campaign, I’ve been able to teach over 200 women skills like self-defense and situational awareness, as these are skills I have training in every day. So the importance of this campaign really is just to ensure that no woman feels stuck in a situation that she doesn’t know how to get herself out of.”
As both a pageant queen and police officer, Kanavel says she wants young women to know they can “do anything and be anything.”
“When little girls see me as Miss Arizona USA and then see what I do for a living, I think it’s really going to open some doors and open some eyes for them to what the possibilities are for their lives. You can do anything and be anything. I’m a pageant queen and I’m a police officer and I can be successful at both. And I want younger girls looking up to me to know that they can do that, too.”
