New Baxter Chief Make Changes With Officers

Baxter Police Chief Al Reyes is starting his new role by working with his officers and city officials to restructure the police department.

Mayor John Martin said there is some state training Reyes still has to do, but the police chief is mainly focused on getting familiar with his officers and the operations of the city. Martin said Reyes was not satisfied with the state of the department when he arrived, but Reyes is working to clean it all up.

“Well a lot of the policy changes is everyone’s going to look alike,” Martin said. “You know, when he came in, you know, everybody was (in) different types of uniforms and, well, he’s a stickler on appearance. And we’re already addressing that now, we’re ordering uniforms now to take care of that situation.”

Martin said Reyes is collaborating with officers from different areas of expertise as he redesigns the department. Martin said Reyes is also consistently working with the mayor and the board of aldermen to get as much support as he can in the new role.

“If he needs anything in his department, he’s already coming to us and says, ‘This is what I need,'” Martin said. “And we’re already taking care of that at this time.”

Martin said there has been a lot of cleaning throughout the department both in physical terms like when checking inventory and in a managerial sense with the department’s policies and procedures.

“He looked at a lot of things and a lot of things were in disarray,” Martin said. “And he wasn’t very happy with what he saw right then.”

Martin said he and Reyes had a two-and-a-half-hour long conversation about their goals for what needs to be done in the city.

“It went very well,” Martin said. “He’s very knowledgeable, but he’s got some great ideas of what he wants his force to be like.”