A phone rang in the middle of U.S. History teacher Justin Boleyn’s class. Except this wasn’t a students’ phone, it was Boleyn’s. “Are you paying attention to what is happening?”, his wife’s voice said on the other end as he picked up. Boleyn pulled up the news and watched in pain as Capitol Hill was being stormed. He instantly thought of all his old friends and his time serving the Capitol.

Boleyn worked as a Capitol Officer before transferring over to teaching. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day the Capitol got stormed was one of the hardest days for him.

“There’s a part of me that wishes I was with my brothers and sisters,” Boleyn said. “It was very difficult to watch friends of mine that I worked with and knowing what they were going through. I never want to see what we saw that day again.”
Growing up, Boleyn had a lot of personal issues in high school with his life at home. Throughout all of this, he received guidance from a community resource officer, Sgt. Mercer, at his high school. Sgt. Mercer influenced and steered Boleyn in the direction of l pursuing law enforcement.

“If you want to get into this line of work, you need to be making sound decisions now,” Boleyn said. “Every decision that you make compounds on another decision, and the more positive decisions that you make, the better your opportunities are going to be later down the road.”

Before becoming a Capitol Officer, Boleyn studied Criminal Justice for four years at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. He started as an undergraduate following a Bachelor of Science in Government Administrations degree, along with a concentration of law enforcement. He later decided to take the law enforcement route.

“My job was to protect the life and property on Capitol Hill and to enforce the laws that are there.” Boleyn said.

Once graduating from college, he was able to start applying to various law enforcement jobs. He stated that the application process was long. Throughout the process he had to take a written test and a benchmark test on his rational decision abilities.

After passing those, he took two more tests, a psychological evaluation, to check his stable mindset and a polygraph, to test his integrity. He then had a background evaluation, which took around eight months to complete according to him. Soon after he became a Capitol Officer, where he worked from 2003 to 2009 before resigning and getting a job at the House of Sergeant Arms where he worked there for five years.

“I never really thought that I would go my entire 25 year career with the Capitol Police,” Boleyn said. “I took the job of the sergeant of arms to get my security clearances and stuff because I thought I wanted to go into the FBI, CIA, kind of stuff.”

The trajectory of his life changed when his son was born, according to Boleyn. He didn’t want to miss out watching his son grow up, Boleyn said he wanted to be there for him, so he made the decision to take a different path from law enforcement and settle down instead. 

When moving down to Texas he ended up in Conroe, where he was given the opportunity to start teaching. Boleyn then received his certification in teaching and was hired at Oak Ridge High School as a football coach. 

“I felt my life was gonna go one way in the law enforcement and other agencies but then my son was born,” Boylen said. “The job I took with the Sergeant Arms Office allowed me to come in early but leave early so I started coaching football.”

After his second year of coaching, he wanted to pursue teaching as a full time job and was allowed to teach history. Getting certified through Texas Teacher, he began teaching as a History teacher at Oak Ridge High School. Boleyn worked there for four years before switching over to Caney Creek High School. 

However, Boleyn’s service to the government isn’t completely gone. 

“I still work for the government in some way, I worked for the police and now I’m working as a teacher,” Boleyn said “I’m still helping people but I’m doing it in a different way.”