The state's largest police department has a new boss.
Kenton Buckner became the new Little Rock chief of police after being sworn in by Little Rock District Judge Alice Lightle at a well-attended ceremony Monday morning in City Hall.
Buckner, 45, came to Little Rock from Louisville, Ky., where he has served as an assistant chief at the city's metropolitan police department for the past three years.
In his new position, Buckner inherits a department of more than 550 sworn officers and a $67 million budget, and an agency still in the midst of several structural and operational changes.
Buckner, standing nearly a head taller than others at City Hall, thanked city and department officials for the opportunity and made a promise to hold off on wide-scale overhauls.
For the moment, at least.
"I did a lot of talking to get to this point. ... It's time for me to close my mouth and open my ears," Buckner said. "As an outside chief coming in ... I'm going to resist the urge to try and jump in and change a lot of things before I learn about the culture and the people who are already here."
Buckner was one of 59 people who applied to take over the department after Stuart Thomas' announcement in late January that he planned to retire and end his 9-year run as police chief.
Of those 59 applicants, two were current Little Rock captains and one was an assistant chief; those three will now take orders from Buckner, who was tapped by City Manager Bruce Moore on May 26.
Thomas stepped down Friday afternoon, leaving Buckner with a department that is trying to reach its funded capacity of 574 officers, transition into new technology such as communications and real-time crime analysis, and await the completion of new police facilities.
The overhaul is happening during an effort to curb a pronounced jump in violent crime and an overall crime rate that, as of the end of May, was slightly ahead of last year's crime figures, according to preliminary department data.
Buckner began his career in law enforcement in 1993 in Louisville and quickly moved from patrol into working narcotics and gang violence as a detective.
He served as a sergeant over internal affairs, training and homicide before climbing the department ranks, getting promoted three times in four years. His tenure ended as the head of the department's support bureau, where he managed community relations and administrated over the department's crime data and analysis unit among other responsibilities.
Shortly after being sworn in Monday, Buckner told those gathered -- many of them his subordinates -- that his administration would focus on developing community partnerships and emphasize a more proactive and organized community policing strategy.
"Arresting our way out of crime is not going to work," Buckner said. "Agencies have tried that. Little Rock has tried it. And we have a jail that is full today. ... The way we move the ball forward is having community police working together."
The new chief plans on reviewing the department from top to bottom and said that he won't shy away from breaking old habits or making frank assessments.
"In some instances, progress will require uncomfortable conversations," Buckner said. "For us to discuss things [that] maybe we will acknowledge in our barber and beauty shops, but in a public forum it kind of makes us uncomfortable ... we have to shy away from that."
When asked what some of those issues might be, Buckner said he's trying to figure them out.
"Until I look in the closet, underneath the carpet ... I don't know what those conversations are," Buckner said. "Some of the things that impede progress is because we want to do things the way we've always done it. We may have to acknowledge or accept that doesn't work. We may have to acknowledge or accept that some of us are part of the problem. Those are some of the conversations we have to have to get to the other side."
When asked what some of those difficult conversations might be, Moore said that with a new chief, anything is up for re-evaluation.
"He wants the entire city to feel safe. That might mean looking at how we're deploying our resources right now, how we might enhance it, but the important thing is he's going to listen," Moore said of Buckner. "He's going to jump in, listen, but also bring some strategies that might have worked in other areas to Little Rock."
Although given the power of command, Buckner doesn't have the power of arrest -- not yet, at least.
Buckner, who will start with a $135,000 salary, has eight weeks to complete a 40-hour program of training to receive his law enforcement certification from the state.
"I think it was very important that he be sworn in [now]," Moore said. "[It's] the same way it's happened in the past with an out-of-state person."
Metro on 07/01/2014