Acting Chief McKenna Pledges To Support Officers

New Acting Chief William McKenna held a press conference this afternoon, to "address the status of the department". Unfortunately, no Eye correspondent was available to cover this. Patch was there.
The Department later released the following from McKenna.
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Hello and Thank you for coming

Regardless of the circumstances that brought us here today, I’m honored to accept the position of Acting Chief of Police for the Middletown Police Department. I want to thank Mayor Giuliano for giving me this opportunity; I will not let him, nor the citizens and members of this department down.

I have been with the Department for 16 1/2 years most recently serving in the role of Deputy Chief for the past six months. I am a graduate of Xavier High School in Middletown and have a Bachelors of Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resource Management. As the Deputy Chief, I ran the department for approx. 8 weeks when the then Acting Chief McMahon attended out of state training in Virginia.

I have a commitment to this city and its residents and most of all to the 100 plus sworn officers of our department as well as the 30 plus civilian staff. We will continue to serve our citizens with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

I am a lifelong resident of Middletown and a stakeholder in this community. I have served the department, the city and the community to the best of my ability and will continue to do so as the Acting Chief. But this is not about me. It’s about the men and women of this department that come to work every day and put on the Middletown Police Department uniform. The patrol officers and first line supervisors are the ones that make this clock tick. Everything that we as a department do, in serving our community, begins with the officers on the street which then gets filtered to the appropriate divisions up to and including the command staff. I have faith that each member of this department will continue to perform their job function to the best of their ability and we will continue to strive for positive changes. It is my goal to ensure that level of dedication that these officers provide to our citizens is second to none. I see this everyday. It will be my role to ensure that this dedication doesn’t skip a beat. Although we are in transition, the men and women of this dept will continue to serve our community with the highest level of professionalism. In my role as Acting Chief one of my primary objectives will be officer safety. I will demand that officer safety is the top priority for our officers who are husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.

We have a very young department and are in the process of developing these officers into well trained future leaders of our organization. My short term goals will be to meet with union leadership as well as the rank and file and to give them my expectations as well to hear theirs. I also will be meeting with our accreditation manager and seek her input as to moving forward with that process.

Some long term goals will be to not only complete the implementation process for our new Global CAD/RMS records reporting system, but to monitor its statistical features that the system promises. We will continue to fill the vacancies within the department and hire the best possible candidates until we are staffed at our funded 105 sworn officers.

I always have been a firm believer and advocate of Professional Development training for our officers and staff. Many of our officers have specialized training experience including firearms instruction, traffic investigations, and Major investigations. I will expect that all officers and supervisors continue to participate in professional development trainings and utilize these learned skills to promote the overall betterment of the department. I want the public to know that our officers are highly trained and our citizens should be very proud of them.

Promoting these standards of Professional Development ensures that that we are continuously striving to exceed our mission which is to proudly serve in partnership with the community through a commitment to excellence, professionalism and integrity.

It has been expressed that I have earned the respect and support of my fellow officers as a capable leader of integrity and fairness and I am truly grateful for that. I believe in accountability. I will continue to hold our officers and myself accountable for our actions. I am a Middletown guy and will continue to be dedicated to not only my hometown, but to our hometown. Again, I am asking for our citizen’s full and positive cooperation and support during this time.

I want to thank the members of the Middletown Police Department who came here today to listen to my statement.

Thank you,

Acting Chief McKenna