Shifters in general are genetic, passed down through family lines. As communities throughout history consisted largely of numerous family groups cooperating in an area that would become a township/city, this meant that historically, where there's one shifter there's usually a dozen more. Togetherness for shifters enabled a sense of safety and security that the world itself and all its sundry prejudices often denied them. Shifters were revered in some cultures (primarily ones that skewed towards a more paganistic approach to religion) and hunted and killed in others. For many, 'shifter' was the first identity they had, with gender/religion/race coming after. There were many points throughout history (the Inquisition, for example) when they, depending on where they were, lived in absolute fear of being discovered and killed.
There are instances of people being 'forced' to shift, which is facilitated by magic (through some pretty nasty rituals) but the individual needs the latent genetic marker for it. An easy example is to think of it like eye colour — you may carry the marker for blue and brown, but have brown eyes. However, said nasty magic ritual might force a change to blue. The shifters created through this method often experience more unpredictable shifting and sometimes more volatile animalistic tendencies. 'Natural' shifters (who can be a bit elitist about it, Sam isn't quite one of those but he does sort of pity the shifters produced through the 'forced' bloodlines, who are often identified in myth and lore as were-whatevers but whose changes aren't actually tied to the full moon) tend to have an easier time of it, both with the physical act of shifting itself and with the integration of animal instinct.
Sam is from a long line of shifters on both sides of his mother's heritage. His grandmother's lineage has primarily been crows, and his grandfather was a bear shifter (said grandfather was the first in six or seven generations to have it, whereas his grandmother was the first in several generations not to be a shifter). For Sam's part, he essentially cannot remember a time when he was unaware of his ability. He learned walking and flying essentially in tandem.
As an aside: the difference between Dakota/Lakota is etymological, both words mean the same thing ('friend' or 'ally' in variances of dialect) and the people are descended from a singular Plains tribe and they largely consider themselves to be one 'people'. His grandmother was originally from the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation, his grandfather was descended from the Canadian contingent of Hunkpapa Lakota lead by Chief Sitting Bull that lived in exile there after 1877.
So. Back to the cabin. It was the sort of place that has no running water or power, that is almost inaccessible to those that are not shifters themselves or who aren't very confident and capable bushmen/women and definitely wasn't on any government map or census. This was a place where Sam had significant exposure to the culture and values of the Lakota — however, as a child, he felt torn between the two worlds and often preferred to align himself with a more modern 'westernized' approach, believing his grandparents' teachings to be old/useless/embarrassing. He struggled a lot with internalized prejudice against that part of himself and the duality of his presentation to others — he certainly looked Indigenous, but the specifics of his upbringing and his schooling better reflected the Irish Catholic side of his heritage due to how much he repressed of the other half. He spent much of his time with them over the summer pining for his Super Nintendo, and often participated in his grandfather's attempts at teaching him hunting/leatherwork grudgingly at best. His grandmother, who would be considered a language keeper among the Oglala, tried to teach him the language with mixed success. Sam always understood more than he spoke.
However, as his grandparents had a larger hand in raising his elder half-sister Winona, the language had been passed on to her. Sam's mother actually knows very little Lakȟótiyapi herself despite her position simply because of the generational impact of the trauma of residential schools.
He didn't start learning Lakota in earnest until he was in his thirties, and it was as an act of contrition and tribute to his grandparents — both of whom had passed on by the time he finished his military service. He's much more comfortable in his own skin as an adult and whereas the boy he had been would have preferred align with the 'white' side of his heritage, he's found peace and balance in both now that he's grown.
Sam is on the conservative side of things as a direct consequence of his primary male influences being elderly men. His father John was sixty when he was born (in '84) and himself a WW2 veteran. He may have been a part of the 'Greatest Generation', but hoo boy did he believe in a toxic adherence to 'tradition'. He believed a man should rule the household, a woman should Know Her Place and he objected to modern forms of feminism almost as a rule. He didn't even especially like it when women wore pants. As a small-time politician he could turn on the charm and play nice for the cameras and espouse 'modern' views on equality (between sexes and races both) but the truth of the matter was as soon as the curtain came down so too came his veneer of modernity. Sam's grandfather was roughly the same age as his dad, and although his brand of 'masculinity' was less toxic than John's, he still held to fairly conservative values as well, especially when it came to gender roles. Existence in that milieu made his attitude an unfortunately foregone conclusion. He's in a place in his own life where he is capable of challenging his own negative views and his relationship with toxic masculinity, but undoing formative opinions is an emotional labour he doesn't always have the energy to unravel. It really doesn't help that every job he's held as an adult is an 'old boys club' type setting — first the army, then a police department. Respect for equality just wasn't a concern to teenage boys sitting in Humvees talking about Pamela Anderson's titties.
Due to his father being a WW2 veteran, he also grew up around the very, very idealized American purview of that conflict. His father had sort of gradually inflated his own relevance and importance to the war over the years and given Sam a grandiose picture of heroism and bravery that, even though he later came to be estranged from his father, he always wanted to emulate for himself. It's why he joined the so-called 'War on Terror'. It's also why he's so quick to place himself into danger for others — he believes that being a protector is an inherent part of a masculine identity, possibly its most identifying feature. It's also one of the primary influencing values he took away from the Lakota side of his heritage as a youth — he may have eschewed much of the culture but he related heavily to the fact that the Lakota people were considered some of the fiercest warriors among the First Nations tribes and that the men were the protectors of the family units. If he were to lose the ability to do that, he would almost certainly be absolutely unmoored in his own life because he has put all his identity eggs into that one singular basket.
It was his ex-wife Billie — also a shifter from a family of shifters, though she's a wolf — that gradually drew him deeper into the Chicago chapter of shifters, themselves several hundred strong. Billie's family had been in Chicago for generations and were very entrenched in the local Shifter culture (and probably also helped to found it) and they brought Sam into the metaphoric fold with open arms. The sense of belonging, the lack of judgement and the overall togetherness he experienced there shaped his life from the time he was fifteen until he was eighteen (when he was already struggling with his estrangement from his father and his mother's absenteeism) and really was the impetus for him engaging in the community as he does as an adult.
He followed Billie's lead more than he knew (and would probably be comfortable knowing, given his outmoded and sexist views) when it came to helping to foster that sense of community. He looks out for the shifters because he feels it's his duty, there was no single catalyzing event that caused it. He feels he owes it to them for the sense of belonging given to a struggling kid once.
As a detective, he deals primarily in 'human' crime and doesn't deliberately seek out shifter-specific crimes. However, due to the nature of the community most other Chicago shifters know at least of him and that he's a 'safe' cop to talk to, which has lead to some off-the-books work.
If a case with a shifter known to him comes across his desk, he'd probably go a little more out of his way to work/solve it than he would otherwise, and he would also do his best to disrupt cases that run the risk of 'outing' a shifter. He's not going to protect a shifter who's murdered someone, per se, but he might certainly attempt to make that individual available to shifter rather than human justice. However, he looks after the shifter community more by helping to mediate internal conflicts (he isn't the only one called on to mediate of course, he isn't the Be All End All Leader of the Shifter Community, he's just a very active member. There are other shifter cops, firefighters, EMTs, lawyers, politicians, etc with greater importance than him!) being on the alert about any foreign shifters that may show up (are they dangerous, what do they want) as well as any magic users. Sam makes a concentrated effort to keep tabs on any magic users in Chicago — easier said than done — simply because of how much the storied history between shifters and magic-users has been and due also to his own innate prejudice and dislike.
no subject
There are instances of people being 'forced' to shift, which is facilitated by magic (through some pretty nasty rituals) but the individual needs the latent genetic marker for it. An easy example is to think of it like eye colour — you may carry the marker for blue and brown, but have brown eyes. However, said nasty magic ritual might force a change to blue. The shifters created through this method often experience more unpredictable shifting and sometimes more volatile animalistic tendencies. 'Natural' shifters (who can be a bit elitist about it, Sam isn't quite one of those but he does sort of pity the shifters produced through the 'forced' bloodlines, who are often identified in myth and lore as were-whatevers but whose changes aren't actually tied to the full moon) tend to have an easier time of it, both with the physical act of shifting itself and with the integration of animal instinct.
Sam is from a long line of shifters on both sides of his mother's heritage. His grandmother's lineage has primarily been crows, and his grandfather was a bear shifter (said grandfather was the first in six or seven generations to have it, whereas his grandmother was the first in several generations not to be a shifter). For Sam's part, he essentially cannot remember a time when he was unaware of his ability. He learned walking and flying essentially in tandem.
I definitely should have touched a bit more on his grandparents because that ties into your other queries considerably! His grandfather (Charlie Two Bears) was one of Sam's primary male influences in his life, and his grandmother (Margaret, who later in life preferred to go by Pretty Deer or Sitéȟaská Wašté) was a much steadier presence than his mother herself. He spent most of his summers growing up with them. In addition to a house in Woodstock Illinois, they had a cabin in the southernmost part of Saskatchewan, near but not on the Wood Mountain Dakota reservation.
As an aside: the difference between Dakota/Lakota is etymological, both words mean the same thing ('friend' or 'ally' in variances of dialect) and the people are descended from a singular Plains tribe and they largely consider themselves to be one 'people'. His grandmother was originally from the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation, his grandfather was descended from the Canadian contingent of Hunkpapa Lakota lead by Chief Sitting Bull that lived in exile there after 1877.
So. Back to the cabin. It was the sort of place that has no running water or power, that is almost inaccessible to those that are not shifters themselves or who aren't very confident and capable bushmen/women and definitely wasn't on any government map or census. This was a place where Sam had significant exposure to the culture and values of the Lakota — however, as a child, he felt torn between the two worlds and often preferred to align himself with a more modern 'westernized' approach, believing his grandparents' teachings to be old/useless/embarrassing. He struggled a lot with internalized prejudice against that part of himself and the duality of his presentation to others — he certainly looked Indigenous, but the specifics of his upbringing and his schooling better reflected the Irish Catholic side of his heritage due to how much he repressed of the other half. He spent much of his time with them over the summer pining for his Super Nintendo, and often participated in his grandfather's attempts at teaching him hunting/leatherwork grudgingly at best. His grandmother, who would be considered a language keeper among the Oglala, tried to teach him the language with mixed success. Sam always understood more than he spoke.
However, as his grandparents had a larger hand in raising his elder half-sister Winona, the language had been passed on to her. Sam's mother actually knows very little Lakȟótiyapi herself despite her position simply because of the generational impact of the trauma of residential schools.
He didn't start learning Lakota in earnest until he was in his thirties, and it was as an act of contrition and tribute to his grandparents — both of whom had passed on by the time he finished his military service. He's much more comfortable in his own skin as an adult and whereas the boy he had been would have preferred align with the 'white' side of his heritage, he's found peace and balance in both now that he's grown.
Sam is on the conservative side of things as a direct consequence of his primary male influences being elderly men. His father John was sixty when he was born (in '84) and himself a WW2 veteran. He may have been a part of the 'Greatest Generation', but hoo boy did he believe in a toxic adherence to 'tradition'. He believed a man should rule the household, a woman should Know Her Place and he objected to modern forms of feminism almost as a rule. He didn't even especially like it when women wore pants. As a small-time politician he could turn on the charm and play nice for the cameras and espouse 'modern' views on equality (between sexes and races both) but the truth of the matter was as soon as the curtain came down so too came his veneer of modernity. Sam's grandfather was roughly the same age as his dad, and although his brand of 'masculinity' was less toxic than John's, he still held to fairly conservative values as well, especially when it came to gender roles. Existence in that milieu made his attitude an unfortunately foregone conclusion. He's in a place in his own life where he is capable of challenging his own negative views and his relationship with toxic masculinity, but undoing formative opinions is an emotional labour he doesn't always have the energy to unravel. It really doesn't help that every job he's held as an adult is an 'old boys club' type setting — first the army, then a police department. Respect for equality just wasn't a concern to teenage boys sitting in Humvees talking about Pamela Anderson's titties.
Due to his father being a WW2 veteran, he also grew up around the very, very idealized American purview of that conflict. His father had sort of gradually inflated his own relevance and importance to the war over the years and given Sam a grandiose picture of heroism and bravery that, even though he later came to be estranged from his father, he always wanted to emulate for himself. It's why he joined the so-called 'War on Terror'. It's also why he's so quick to place himself into danger for others — he believes that being a protector is an inherent part of a masculine identity, possibly its most identifying feature. It's also one of the primary influencing values he took away from the Lakota side of his heritage as a youth — he may have eschewed much of the culture but he related heavily to the fact that the Lakota people were considered some of the fiercest warriors among the First Nations tribes and that the men were the protectors of the family units. If he were to lose the ability to do that, he would almost certainly be absolutely unmoored in his own life because he has put all his identity eggs into that one singular basket.
It was his ex-wife Billie — also a shifter from a family of shifters, though she's a wolf — that gradually drew him deeper into the Chicago chapter of shifters, themselves several hundred strong. Billie's family had been in Chicago for generations and were very entrenched in the local Shifter culture (and probably also helped to found it) and they brought Sam into the metaphoric fold with open arms. The sense of belonging, the lack of judgement and the overall togetherness he experienced there shaped his life from the time he was fifteen until he was eighteen (when he was already struggling with his estrangement from his father and his mother's absenteeism) and really was the impetus for him engaging in the community as he does as an adult.
He followed Billie's lead more than he knew (and would probably be comfortable knowing, given his outmoded and sexist views) when it came to helping to foster that sense of community. He looks out for the shifters because he feels it's his duty, there was no single catalyzing event that caused it. He feels he owes it to them for the sense of belonging given to a struggling kid once.
As a detective, he deals primarily in 'human' crime and doesn't deliberately seek out shifter-specific crimes. However, due to the nature of the community most other Chicago shifters know at least of him and that he's a 'safe' cop to talk to, which has lead to some off-the-books work.
If a case with a shifter known to him comes across his desk, he'd probably go a little more out of his way to work/solve it than he would otherwise, and he would also do his best to disrupt cases that run the risk of 'outing' a shifter. He's not going to protect a shifter who's murdered someone, per se, but he might certainly attempt to make that individual available to shifter rather than human justice. However, he looks after the shifter community more by helping to mediate internal conflicts (he isn't the only one called on to mediate of course, he isn't the Be All End All Leader of the Shifter Community, he's just a very active member. There are other shifter cops, firefighters, EMTs, lawyers, politicians, etc with greater importance than him!) being on the alert about any foreign shifters that may show up (are they dangerous, what do they want) as well as any magic users. Sam makes a concentrated effort to keep tabs on any magic users in Chicago — easier said than done — simply because of how much the storied history between shifters and magic-users has been and due also to his own innate prejudice and dislike.