Residents looking back on changes to the Loveland Police Department since the May 2016 hiring of Chief Robert Ticer will find new faces among its staff, officers carrying new gadgets and a different system for tracking reports of crime and traffic accidents.
Ticer came to Loveland after serving as chief of Avon Police Department in Eagle County and being selected to head LPD following the retirement of former chief Luke Hecker at the end of 2015.
Hecker claimed a harsh political climate forced him into retirement; he and the department were named in two civil lawsuits at the time of his departure, one that has since been dismissed by a federal court and one that cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle on behalf of LPD and Hecker. A Fraternal Order of Police survey also showed discontent with Hecker's leadership among LPD employees.
Ticer, however, said he has felt welcomed by the department and the Loveland community since his arrival during an interview Tuesday in which he reflected on some of his proudest moments while at the helm of LPD.
Taking the top police position in Loveland was partly to achieve a personal goal, Ticer said, as he saw it as a chance to return to a larger department, closer in size to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, where he worked for 20 years before accepting the Avon police chief job.
"I saw Loveland as an opportunity to get back into a department with a big mission, not that there isn't a big mission in the mountains. But this is a city with a lot of work. I was really drawn to that," Ticer said. "On a personal level, it's nice to get back to where it's a little bit warmer, and into a city setting with access still to the mountains and fishing and those other things we like to do."
A departmental switch made directly by Ticer upon his arrival was to its slogan, which is now the phrase, "Save lives. Fight crime. Survive."
A changing of the guard among the department's top brass as well as the additions of initiatives to fight the opioid epidemic and to deter mental illness have also come this year under Ticer's leadership.
Over the course of 2017, two longtime LPD captains, Bob Klinger and Rob McDaniel, retired, and have since been replaced by two law enforcement veterans from outside agencies.
Eric Stewart, who served with Aurora police from 1994 to earlier this year, was hired to fill Klinger's vacancy in July, and Ray Butler, a colleague of Ticer's from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, joined LPD to replace McDaniel just earlier this month, Ticer said.
Plus, $900,498 in city funds was earmarked by the Loveland City Council at Ticer's request for the addition of five new full-time police officers in 2018. The department also formed a first-of-its-kind partnership with SummitStone Health Partners to provide two mental health therapists to work alongside police to connect the mentally ill with proper resources to prevent strain on LPD staff.
Law enforcement agencies throughout Northern Colorado have made goals to emulate LPD's relationship with SummitStone.
"What I see with excitement now is two new commanders on the department who came in from outside and have a different perspective," Ticer said. "We have a lot people with different perspectives, and when we sit down together we can come up with the best course of action. When someone with experience leaves an organization, they'll leave a void of institutional knowledge, experience and background, that's a fact. The exciting thing is, it opens up the opportunity for new people. That goes down to hiring new recruits. You can build upon the successes of those who came before."
Also in 2017, new equipment came for patrol officers by way of grants to fund the additions of the opioid overdose-reversal drug Narcan to all officers' tool belts, as well as to put automated external defibrillators for reviving heart attack victims to all patrol vehicles.
Ticer said one of his most memorable highlights as Loveland's top cop was watching emergency dispatcher Erin Berry be named International Dispatcher of the Year at an April ceremony in New Orleans. Berry was honored for her actions during a 911 call in September 2016, when she talked Loveland High School students through administering CPR and retrieving an AED for then-16-year-old Zander Kunselman, who collapsed while running on the track after school and was ultimately revived.
Expanding officers' duties to encompass more than just those of the division they are assigned to has also been emphasized by Ticer, he said. In other words, traffic officers may be asked to investigate criminal incidents from time to time.
"We're less compartmentalized. Traffic cops aren't just patrolling traffic," he said.
Implementing a program known as a Data-Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic Safety since his arrival is also a point of pride for Ticer, he said.
The program mandates accurate tracking of the times of day, locations and days of the week that criminal activity and traffic accidents overlap most, and sending additional police patrols into those areas. For Loveland, the data-driven method has shown those so-called "hot-spots" to be East Eisenhower Boulevard and the U.S. 287 corridor, including the downtown area.
Bike-patrol and foot-patrol programs have been revived to combat vagrancy and traffic issues in the downtown area this year, and extra traffic patrol vehicles are often visible on Eisenhower in east Loveland.
As for how long Ticer plans to stay the head of LPD, he said, "That is always a hard question to answer. I'm here, this is the community I live in and I want to stay here."
Sam Lounsberry: 970-635-3630, lounsberrys@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/samlounz.
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