Police chief shuffles officers’ duties to expand experience
Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Three Fayetteville police officers are being transferred from their desk jobs to patrol.
Fayetteville Police Chief Greg Tabor recently ordered the internal changes to expand officers’ work experience.
“It enhances their career development,” he said. “It also gives people the opportunity to try something new.”
Officers being transferred include Detectives Anthony Smith and Mike Parks, along with Warrants Officer Darrin Wright.
Parks’ position will be replaced by Patrol Officer Malachi Samuels.
“We’ll fill in the rest of the blanks as we go along,” Tabor said. “When you move one person, it often affects all the other shifts. That’s why we can’t do it all at once.”
All three shift changes will be in effect by early December.
Officers being transferred will initially be placed with field training officers to familiarize themselves with their new duties, as well as updated patrol technology.
In addition to patrol cars equipped with new mobile computer data terminals, police dispatchers are now equipped with a computerbased mapping system that allows them to keep track of police vehicles.
E-ticketing technology enables officers to enter the information about an issued ticket into a handheld device, which is later placed into a docking port at the police headquarters. The information is directly transferred into the agency’s computer system.
Earlier this year, Tabor transferred nearly a dozen officers to new positions within the department. Officer assignments, he said, were based on areas in which police could use the experience.
“There will be more of these things to come,” he said. “In Springdale, they do automatic shift changes every two or three years.”
Though the internal restructuring wasn’t voluntary, Tabor said he hasn’t heard any negative feedback.
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