LAFAYETTE POLICE CHIEF THOMAS GLOVER
New Police Chief's Community Policing Initiative Aims to Bridge Gaps By Vicky Roe
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t’s only been a few months since Thomas Glover became the Chief of Police for the Lafayette Police Department, but he already has big plans of change for the community. With trust hanging in the balance, Chief Glover knows he needs to build trust not only in himself as the new Police Chief, but also between the department and the general public. So, what will it take? More than words, it’s going to take action. Chief Glover’s new initiative is not aimed at building a temporary fix for high tensions, but a true change in Lafayette. Chief Glover explained, “The Lafayette Police Department is going to be practicing community policing from the top down and I’ve mandated that every sworn officer in this department has to do at least one community service event per week. That can be anything from coaching
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a baseball team, talking to Girls Scouts, doing a security survey for an elderly citizen, all the way down to going to a convenient store, drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with the clerk about any particular problems they may be experiencing. The essence of it is to get officers in contact with the citizens without being dispatched on a 911 call. We are going to try to build trust and a stronger relationship with the community through this and it will work.” Chief Glover hopes to increase those hours over the next year or two, possibly moving to two events a week. For now he is setting his initial sights on implementing this program to get officers in a position where they’re not just in a vehicle or responding to a 911 emergency call, but rather where they’re initiating the contact, not the citizen. 337M A GA ZIN E . CO M
JUNE 2021
