LEWISTON – Dressed in a navy blue uniform, Joseph Philippon steered his blue-and-white cruiser through midafternoon traffic on College Street. His radio name is 202, the same name as the route he covers. A dispatcher has alerted beat patrol officers to “be on the lookout.”

A reported robbery at the Chalet Motel. Getaway car: a silver Infinity. Suspects: three males, two Hispanic and one possibly Hispanic or black. Use caution.

It’s jargon he has grown to live with as a cop. Physical description is crucial in police work. That includes race.

It doesn’t bother Philippon.

On the job, he thinks of himself as just another cop.

But to the Lewiston Police Department, there is something different about him. He’s their first – and only – minority officer.

He is Indian. Not American Indian. He was born in Calcutta. His parents adopted him through an agency when he was an infant. He doesn’t remember the place of his birth and has never been back.

He doesn’t think of himself as Indian. He is an American, he said.

He grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Lewiston, went to local parochial schools and the state university. He played hockey, baseball, soccer and lacrosse. He wears khaki pants and a rugby shirt on his day off.

Reminders of his ancestry are tucked away in a drawer – or closet – in his old bedroom at his Franco-American parents’ home. The Indian flag that adorned his teenage bedroom wall and a carved ivory elephant that traveled with him from India are so peripheral in his life now that he fails to locate them during a spontaneous search. The only trapping of that brief period in his Indian life that remains is his middle name: Jahan. He doesn’t speak French, like his parents. And he doesn’t know a word of Hindi or Punjabi or Urdu.

When he’s in his cruiser, patrolling the streets that surround Bates College and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center – places where he worked security – he doesn’t consider the race of somebody he might pull over in traffic or detain on the sidewalk.

His police training has taught him to look instead at what they’re doing, where they’re going and how they’re moving. He thinks about what might be in their cars or in their pockets.

“Anybody and everybody out here can kill you,” he said.

Suspecting somebody because of their age or ethnicity isn’t something he was trained to do either.

Growing up in Lewiston, Philippon was used to being one of the few minority members in his classes. So the transition to an all-white police force wasn’t much of an adjustment.

On the streets, in his uniform, some people react to his skin color. Most don’t see past the blue of his clothes and the silver of his badge.

If they bother to comment to his face, most mistake him as being black, he said. It’s never a negative comment.

Philippon, now 22, said he doesn’t find it off-putting. It’s a natural observation.

“I understand why,” he said. “To some people, it’s a humongous deal.”

Soft spoken, Philippon is quick with a smile.

At 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 170 pounds, Philippon is small for a cop.

But looks, in his case, are deceiving. He can bench press 260 pounds.

At school, the racial slurs were few and infrequent. Nothing big.

In town, it was the same.

One time, he was walking out of a local movie theater with a friend when two people drove past and yelled a racial epithet and obscenity out the window.

“That was the only time I ever came across anything that ‘over the top,'” he says.

Most of his friends were – and are – white. It’s a statistical probability.

Maine is about 97 percent white, tied with Vermont as the whitest state in the nation. Lewiston wasn’t much different. But a recently growing population of Somalis is changing that. The Lewiston Police Department hasn’t yet caught up with that trend.

Police Chief William Welch hopes to change that. Philippon is an important first step, he said.

No affirmative action program. Every candidate is vetted through the same rigorous screening process. A battery of exams is required of everyone, including a psychological evaluation and lie-detector test.

Philippon said he’s never been called to a scene involving minorities because of his race.

Welch said that could happen, especially as Philippon gains in seniority.

If Philippon can be called on to calm a situation fraught with racial tension, he will be, Welch said.

That happens now with female officers, he said. Or with those fluent in French.

“We would do everything to accommodate that,” Welch said.

Philippon said he’s ready and able to comply.

“I’m willing to step up,” he says.

Welch said he sees Philippon as a “pioneer” at the department. His presence on the force should help provide a level of comfort for future minority applicants. He may be deployed one day as a recruiter of minority candidates, Welch said.

His department struggles to attract qualified minority applicants, whose numbers currently stand at less than 5 percent of the total. He has switched from a once-yearly admissions window to a yearlong rolling application process in an effort to attract greater numbers of minorities, as well as other qualified applicants.

“We’ve never been satisfied with our ability to recruit minorities,” he said. He has talked to several members of the Somali community about applying for work at his department. He said he hopes to hire a Somali officer sometime soon.

Meanwhile, Philippon plans to go about his law-enforcement duties like any of his fellow officers.