THE CHIEF
When John Wallace accepted Mayor Tim Armstrong’s appointment of him as Madison’s chief of police, he knew it would be a multi-tasking job. But he didn’t know it would include having to help his department recover from a flood.
The day of the city’s devastating rain a few weeks ago, water poured from a major leak into the police department and Wallace’s office in the basement of City Hall. Since then, the chief and his officers have had to work around the mess left by the flood, which is now being cleaned up.
For that reason, this interview took place principally around a table in a small conference room next to the Council Chamber.
Wallace, a tall blond-haired man with an outgoing manner and a ready wit, didn’t appear fazed by the unexpected downpour, however.
“It’s definitely a multi-tasking position,” he said of the job he has been doing since Jan. 1. “Public relations — I have to represent our department to the public, and encourage them to assist us” in offering tips to help solve crimes. “A good rapport between me and the officers is vital to building morale in the department. We’re very pleased with the gains we made over the last six months.”
Wallace grinned then, and added, “Plus dealing with our problems in the physical environment of the department — that is, the flooding, repairing the damage, and so forth.”
The department has initiated bike patrols — which it has had before — and foot patrols, which had not been conducted for some years.
Due to safety issues which could arise for bike patrol officers, Wallace said, special training is being given to those members of the department who will be wheeling it this summer.
The foot patrols are planned for areas of the downtown. Bike patrols are scheduled for both downtown and the hilltop. “That creates an atmosphere for our officers to go one on one with our citizens,” Wallace explained. “Any time our officers can work together with the public, we’re a heckuva team.”
The chief said his department wants the public to get acquainted with its officers, and the officers with the people.
“Since I’ve been in office it’s seemed that the mayor’s open-door policy has encouraged the public” to come forward more consistently to offer information about possible lawbreaking, Wallace said. “As far as reporting things, we’re very pleased that they are.”
Besides the repairs and clean-up necessitated by the flood, Wallace said, other upgrades have been made to the police facility, such as a larger, more accessible evidence room. Another change, this one in policy, is more detailed sharing of information between the various shifts of officers at shift change, to provide better continuity in investigations.
“Sometimes police are territorial, but I think we’ve knocked down a lot of those walls — especially with drug arrests,” the chief said.
He said his department does not want to discourage anyone from having a good time in public — “Just not at someone else’s expense.”
The department is not quite back up to strength yet, being four officers short. But Wallace said the hiring of officers Dean Woolard and James Lee — both of whom have prior service and are police academy graduates — and of Ray Norris and Seth Melton, will help considerably.
Lee and Woolard already are “on the street,” and Norris and Melton are to begin their police academy training Sept. 1, the chief said. In addition, MPD detectives Ty Eblen and Jeremey Perkins have been in Indianapolis for the past week, working alongside detectives in the Homicide and Robbery Division of the Indianapolis Police Department. “This is the first time our detectives have actually worked with IPD” to gain valuable on-the-street experience in a major urban environment, he added.
Wallace discussed a couple of major crime problems which have been topics of conversation in Madison: Break-ins, and illegal drugs.
“Break-ins go in cycles. Usually someone doesn’t just do one and stop,” the chief said. “They’re repetitive until we put a stop to it. And probably 80 percent of the time, break-ins are drug-driven. Illegal drugs lead to a lot of other crimes. Madison’s no different than anywhere else that way, but we have made some big inroads into the drug problem here, through cooperation with other police agencies. And we encourage citizen cooperation.”
Wallace said the “drug of choice” among local offenders arrested by MPD tends to bounce back and forth between methamphetamines, or meth, and cocaine. “That’s among the hard-core stuff,” he added. “Of course, there are always marijuana arrests, too.”
The chief said that when he came into office, “People would say, ‘I don’t know our officers anymore. I used to know all of them.’ Well, we want people to get acquainted with our officers, and the officers with them.”
Wallace, a veteran of more than 20 years with MPD, is a second-generation policeman. His late father, Jack Wallace, also wore the badge of the Madison Police for 20 years.
John Wallace and his wife, Patti Greene Wallace, have two sons, John K. Wallace, 24, and Curtis Wallace, 21; and one daughter, Kelsi Wallace, 12.
The Wallace sons are following in the footsteps of their father and grandfather. John K. is a police officer with the Indianapolis department, having completed the police academy, and has been on the street for several months. “I’m very proud of him,” his dad said.
Curtis is majoring in criminal justice at Ball State University and seems destined for a police career, too, John Wallace said.
Old Corporal <corporalko@yahoo.com>
Chatting with the Chief, – Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 19:15:37 (EDT)
