The bookshelves behind Lloyd Franklin Sr.'s desk remained bare on the third day into his stint as interim police chief.
"My family came in and said, 'You don't have any pictures on the wall,'" Franklin said. "I said, 'Well, I don't want to put them up and I'm going to be gone in the next 30 days.' I don't want to make it feel like home, and then I got to move.
"Then, I pull these drawers up, and it's all kinds of books in there. They're not mine, but I know where they are because I have them."
Franklin said he accepted the offer from Mayor Shirley Washington with the understanding that his term is only in the interim until a full-time chief is hired.
"I love the city of Pine Bluff," said Franklin, 69, a 33-year veteran of the Arkansas State Police who retired in 2012. "I don't plan to pursue it [full time], but the only extension I would give is while she's still looking."
A meet-and-greet for Franklin is scheduled for 6 tonight at the courtyard on the second level of the Civic Center, 200 E. Eighth Ave.
"I started thinking about people in the community who had strong law enforcement backgrounds and were available," Washington said. "As I thought about that, [Franklin] always stood out in my mind. I had a conversation with him and I thought he would be the man for the job."
On the job since Tuesday, Franklin has taken over at a time when Pine Bluff is struggling to contain homicides and other violent crimes. Killings occurred on back-to-back days last weekend, after 17 days without one.
"We're going to reduce crime, period," Franklin said. "Violent crime, domestic crime, we're going to use the resources we have to reduce it. We're not going to try to reduce it -- we're going to reduce it."
It may take convincing aggressors in a disturbance to seek help before the problem gets worse to control the violent crime, Franklin suggested.
"Naturally, we can't go into people's houses and station police officers to keep people from having domestic disturbances, but we can if we've gotten a call there," he said. "It don't mean we have to wait until we've gotten another call. I want officers to understand if they get a domestic call, and they get another one, we need to do something before it becomes [a bigger problem]. I'm not sure that's happening, but I think it may be, but it could be a deal that we have to take on a little social work and make it where they go get some counseling. It's like if you have an officer and they have a temper problem, you put them in some type of counseling."
Morale across the department has been rumored to be low in recent months. The department has dealt with short staffing in recent years, employing 102 out of a possible 137 officers as of June 14, according to a public information officer for the department.
"We're going to have to deal with it, and we're going to have to deal with it with resources we have. That means, I'm not going to let anybody talk about, 'Well, how many officers are we down,' but we're going to use what we got here," Franklin said. "If you are working here, especially if you are a supervisor -- and I'm serious as daylight -- if you are a supervisor and you're not seeing that the people you are supervising are doing what they're supposed to be doing in a top-quality way, then we'll find something else for you to do. I want supervisors so well-versed in what they are supervising that they can teach."
Asked how to holistically address the morale issue, Franklin said he will hold supervisors and employees accountable -- with supervisors being the first people he will "jump on."
"I'm not going to back up because if you are being paid to supervise someone, and you don't know how to supervise them or you are too lazy to supervise them, whatever the reason is, I'm going to move you and I'm not going to put you somewhere else to supervise somebody else," Franklin said.
"I'm going to find you somewhere to sit down and you can sit there until you retire. The image of the police department is so important," Franklin said. "That's the morale right there. I don't want someone who doesn't know how to supervise me or talk to me or don't know how to show me what I need to be doing. If I'm having a bad day, I don't pass that bad day off to the public. I have bad days, too, but you can't just go out here [and say], 'Well, I just didn't have it.' Can't do it."
The original search to replace Kelvin Sergeant, who retired July 1, stalled after City Council members during Monday's meeting pulled all options for increasing salaries across the police and fire departments from consideration for fear of coming up short financially.
Washington indicated she would inform Kingsland, Ga., Police Chief Robert Jones, the lone finalist in the original search, of her decision to move on from considering him. Washington said in June that Jones asked for $115,000, well above the $90,152 budgeted for the position.
On starting a second search, Washington said: "I will not do that until after the council makes a permanent adjustment on the salary for the position of police chief. We need to adjust the salary because we can't attract good people at that salary. From the applications, there were some sergeants applying that were making more than we were paying our chief. The average low end for a chief was $110,000. I was asking them to bring it to 115 [thousand]. I was asking for a base of $100,000 and the bonuses would make it $110,000.
"Looking at the entire budget, the first priority for now when it comes to time sensitivity is the police chief, but if we have to wait, we'll just have to wait. The process shouldn't have taken this long, but it did."
Jones visited Pine Bluff from June 13-15, just days after being announced as the top candidate. He emerged from a group of nine candidates who interviewed with the mayor and a search committee of residents in May.
It could be three to six months before a second search commences, Washington said.
For the time being, Franklin said: "I'll stay as long as she wants me to."
Franklin also has a request for the residents who may be interested in having him around even longer at headquarters.
"I'm asking the public to support us in carrying out the mission of the Pine Bluff Police Department," he said. "I'm also asking the public to not start lobbying on my behalf about what I ought to be, talking about what I ought to be or permanent or all this type of stuff. All I want them to do is support the police department and support the city and support us until the mayor makes her decision as to the police chief that she wants to hire. If you're a friend of mine, you know me -- don't do it."