Local author, John DiGirolamo, has a passion for policing and was inspired to tell the officers stories after listening to a summer full of negative portrayals of police officers in the media in 2020. âThere was a constant drumbeat yet you never heard the officers side, especially that of small town rural officers,â DiGirolamo said. The result was âItâs Not About the Badgeâ â six stories about real cops including five from Chaffee County and one from Omaha. The stories tell of the dangers they face in their work of protecting the public, often when a âsimpleâ call turns into a dangerous situation that could cost them their lives. But even more interesting are the stories of why they got into law enforcement.