The
Interview
Only Place I Want to be -
Prescott
PRESCOTT’S POLICE CHIEF SHARES HER VIEWS by Ray Newton
So fortunate to have trained many young leaders through the FBI National Academy Youth Leadership Program. Running in the Tinkerbell half marathon at Disneyland.
I wish I could remember what year this was…. a local paper did an article about women at the PD. I was an officer then so sometime before 2005.
Amy Bonney, a Prescott native, attended Prescott High School in the early 1990s where she was an honor student, an athlete — track and field — and a flautist in the orchestra and the Badger marching band. When she graduated in 1994, she enrolled at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and initially was pleased by brighter lights, a greater variety of shopping and malls, and more social events. However, “That four years I was away made me realize Prescott was the only place for me.” When she graduated from NAU in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice and minor in Spanish, she returned to Prescott. She applied 24
P R E S C OT T L I V I N G | W IN T ER 2022
for and was accepted as an officer in the Prescott Police Department (PPD). She rose through the ranks and was promoted to deputy chief in 2016. Just a few years later, she would be named as the PPD chief of police. Along the way she married Prescott Valley policeman Brandon Bonney, now retired. They have an 11-yearold daughter Reagan and live near Amy’s parents and enjoy a strong and close family relationship. Almost immediately on her return to Prescott, she would become involved in civic and community activities that ultimately would propel her to prominence in her hometown. For
example, within the past two years, she has participated in the popular Prescott version of “Dancing with the Stars.” She was nominated this past year for the prestigious Athena “Woman of the Year” award. And just this past Jan. 9, she was invited to conduct the opening number —The Star-Spangled Banner — for the Arizona Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center. Bonney is emphatic that the best thing she ever did in her career was to return to Prescott. “Once I graduated from NAU, I knew immediately I wanted to ‘go home.’ I never applied anywhere else. Prescott is the only place for me and my family.”
Q
