RENO, Nev. — Joe Kenda regaled an eager audience with tales of his 25-year career as a detective, describing it as a “slow dance of violence,” which changed once he took the helm of a school bus and “for the first time in my adult life, people were actually happy to see me,” he said.
The auditorium was packed for the Monday morning STN EXPO general session to hear Kenda detail his history solving the vast majority of the cases that landed on his desk and transporting special needs students for eight years.
The a former detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department and subject of the “Homicide Hunter” TV series on Investigation Discovery didn’t mince words, explaining that he became a police officer because he wanted to “pull guns on people.”
“I see the world in black and white…there is only right and wrong,” Kenda said. “I loved (my work), I would have done it for free. The adrenaline rush, it was a drug for me.”
While Kenda learned to cope with the brutality he continuously faced, never fully giving up the ghosts that haunted him, his work took a toll on his family. His wife told him that she couldn’t “wait for him to come home anymore.”
Kenda retired from the police force, eventually ending up behind the wheel of a school bus transporting special needs students after inquiring about a ‘Help Wanted’ sign he randomly saw. He worked as a bus driver for almost a decade.
If television hadn’t come knocking, Kenda would have stayed at this post. “I loved the kids,” he said.
His background made him an expert with conflict resolution, especially when dealing with irate parents, but sometimes with unruly children. He believes bus drivers are the last line of defense for “a lot of people no one will care about.”
“You don’t do it for the money, you do it because you love the children,” he said. “America gives you their sons and daughters, it’s up to you to protect them.”
Homicide Hunters is about to enter its sixth season.
