Westfield Police Chief Shawn Keen has created a new organizational structure for the WPD, part of his effort to streamline the department, reduce redundancies and eliminate inefficiencies.
Keen presented the new organizational chart to the Board of Public Works and Safety in July.
“Some of the restructuring was based on a great deal (of information from) the interviews I conducted (with staff) and the analysis of where I wanted to take the department moving forward,” said Keen, who took over as chief April 8. “Prior to this we had one assistant chief. (Two assistant chiefs) are in line with Fishers and Carmel. It puts us in a good position as the department grows to cover all the areas of the department.”
Eric Grimes and Scott Jordan were appointed to those roles July 24. Grimes oversees operations, which includes patrol and investigations. Jordan oversees administration, which includes support and technical services.
Keen said the reorganization places shift patrols, school resource officers and traffic officers under one division. Those were previously overseen by multiple supervisors.
“The change here is bringing those areas together so operations are under one umbrella, we have one supervisor over all uniformed personnel,” he said.
The reorganization also combined different aspects of investigations, such as detectives and crime scene investigators, under a single supervisor.
“We brought like-functions together here under one supervisor so they can more seamlessly work together,” Keen said.
On the administrative side, Keen said the department is making changes to how property and evidence is handled.
“Currently, the criminalists are collecting evidence, storing it and disposing it. It’s better to have that be a separate function for chain of custody,” he said.
Keen said the administrative side will also handle community engagement, as well as head up efforts to seek out programming that can benefit the WPD.
“As the department looks to the future, we’re looking at things we want to try, such as drones as a first responder program or a social worker program,” Keen said. “Anything that is trending in law enforcement, we want to look at the exploration of that and whether it is right for our community.”
Keen also said records will be transferred to a civilian position to allow a certified officer to focus on policing rather than record keeping.
“This is a change within the structure of the department, but I think it’s one that will help us as we grow as a community and as a police department,” Keen said. “We sat down to build this command team. What we’re looking for is not just servant leaders and those who are good task leaders, but also, we wanted to build a team to work together seamlessly. I think that’s what we’ve accomplished.”
Keen said training and command are adequate for growth, but investment will need to be made in additional school resource officers, the patrol division, investigation participation in task forces and an increase in civilian employees, such as intelligence analysts.
“Those are civilian positions that might help support us in ways that we just don’t have right now, those capabilities,” he said.
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