N ewly appointed Manchester Police Chief Adam Floied served as the guest speaker for the March Manchester Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon where he explained that the department is moving forward with an attitude of “policing with compassion.”

Floied, an FBI National Academy graduate with 30 years of law enforcement experience, explained that compassion is not a word that is always associated with law enforcement and that most people only think about enforcement, authority and response which is something he hopes to change.

“Here’s what I believe: compassion isn’t soft. Compassion is strong. Compassion is smart, and compassion is effective policing,” said Floied. “At the end of the day, what we deal with isn’t just crime. It’s people. People on their worst day, people in crisis, people scared, people frustrated and people hurting. How we show up in those moments define us as a police department.”

While the average person experiences 4 to 6 traumatic events in their life, Floied noted that police officers on average experience 400 to 600 traumatic events in the line of duty like crashes with fatalities, domestic violence calls, overdoses and others.

“When I talk about compassion, it’s not just something that we have to show the public,” he added. “It’s something that we have to show each other and our staff. If we expect our officers to care for our community, then we have to care for them too.”

Floied said that as chief he will not only focus on policies but on culture as well and lead with the philosophy of “take care of your people, and they’ll take care of your community.”

“We are emphasizing training, communication, wellness, accountability and problem solving,” he explained. “We’re encouraging our officers to be guardians and not just responders. When officers feel supported, they serve better, and when they serve better, everybody benefits.”

“We will be professional, proactive and compassionate on every call, every contact, every day,” added Floied. “That means treating every person with dignity and respect. It means looking for solutions and not just enforcement and it means building trust long before we need it. Trust is built in small moments, not just in emergencies.”

One recent example gave was officers from the MPD going to Hickerson Elementary School to spend some time with students there after an incident at Fred Deadman Park where the police were called.

In addition to policing with compassion, Floied also said that he wants to see the personality restored to the Manchester Police Department, referring to a time in the past when the city was commonly called “Man-catcher.”

“I don’t want the criminal element feeling comfortable in Manchester,” Floied emphasized. “We used to have the personality that if someone was being chased by an outside agency, that person would take the long way around Manchester because they knew if they came in the city limits, we were going to catch them.”

Floied introduced members of the MPD that were also present at the luncheon including new Assistant Chief Dale Robertson, Chief Investigator Bryan Eldridge and Captain Jamie Newman.

He also presented some of the recent improvements that have been made to the department, one of which includes adding stop sticks, a tire deflation device, to every patrol car in the city where they had previously only been in supervisors’ cars.

“We’re pretty proud to have those in all the cars and hope that we can stop pursuits when they enter the city and not just be a part of them or try to chase the bad guy to the end,” he said. “We want to stop it as soon as it breaches the city limits.”

The MPD has had two successful deployments of the devices since implementing them in all cars since December.

A new evidence technician position has also been added to the police department and will be responsible for both physical evidence as well as digital evidence.

“We now have body cameras and car cameras in all of our vehicles and on all of our patrol officers. That creates an enormous amount of video data,” Floied explained. “What has to happen is if someone does a Freedom of Information request wanting copies of that data, it has to be viewed by somebody on our staff and redacted for information that we cannot let get out such as juvenile information and HIPPA.”

As Floied explained, if four officers respond to a call and are on the scene for an hour, then that creates four hours of data that the evidence technician has to look through for any moments where restricted information was given.

The department has also upgraded officers’ pistols with aiming systems that Floied says will improve accuracy.

Floied also commended Manchester Mayor Joey Hobbs and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for being supportive of the efforts to advance the MPD into a “modern, progressive police department.”

“We just put computers in all of our cars, and if you think about that catching us up to speed, computers have been in police cars for over 20 years, and over the last couple of years, there’s been a very concentrated effort to get the police department caught back up,” he said. “We’ve made a very progressive and aggressive effort to do so, and we couldn’t have done it without the support of both Mayor Hobbs and the full Board.”

Floied ended his remarks by promising that the Manchester will have a police department that leads with integrity.

“You will have officers who serve with compassion, and you have a chief who listens,” he noted. “I’m proud to serve this city and proud of the team beside me and proud to call Manchester home. We live in a great community that supports law enforcement.”