Day in the Life with Paul Williams

Growing up in Detroit, Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams didn’t imagine being a cop anywhere else.

A third-generation policeman – his grandfather was a motorcycle officer in the Motor City – Williams began to consider a new future when over a fourth of the force was laid off in 1980. After he graduated from Northern Michigan University with a bachelor’s in criminal justice, he went south and west in 1981 in search of work and landed a job in Tulsa, Okla.

“I had no connection to the city,” he says, but he put down roots.

Williams’ wife is from northeast Oklahoma. When he moved in 2010 to take the top job in Springfield, he had earned the rank of major. He was familiar with Springfield, and it was a safe place with two young kids, then 7 and 12.

“It wasn’t a place where I had to come and fix a bunch of problems,” he says, sipping on a cup of black coffee.

On May 18, an impromptu staff meeting broke out with Zone I and Zone II commanders Cpts. Ben King and Greg Higdon as Williams sat at the big table at Kingdom Coffee downtown. He was there beginning at 7 a.m. sharp for Coffee with the Chief, a monthly ritual his staff has deemed a good place to get in his ear. The venue, started as a way to introduce him to the community, moves to different parts of town. It would have gone by the wayside years ago, but former Councilwoman Cindy Rushefsky encouraged him to stay with it.

Williams, who has chatted with as many as 30 folks at the event, learned not to order breakfast after a visit to Anton’s. “You can’t talk and eat biscuits and gravy,” he says.

But beware: If you want time with Williams, order coffee or biscotti. The chief is known to stop a conversation cold if you’re not going to support the venues that host him.

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On this Wednesday, just one customer stops to talk – criminal defense attorney James Hayes. They chat about overcrowding at the jail and the new plan to transport accused criminals to Taney and Miller counties.

Over 5,000 people have been released on their own recognizance in the past year since Sherriff Jim Arnott began to block municipal offenders. It’s one of several numbers that keep Williams up at night. Another is 33, the total reported police injuries in the first quarter of 2016. Suspects resisting arrests caused 18.

After chatting with Springfield News-Leader beat reporter Harrison Keegan as coffee wraps at 8 a.m., the chief swings by an Office of Emergency Management breakfast before his 9 a.m. staff meeting.

Williams reminds his command staff to tell officers to mind slips and falls – there were five in the first quarter – and he hears reports from his leaders, including awards and achievements, talks of police graduates and legislation on body cameras. The department’s nearly $33 million budget doesn’t include the cameras. Nearly 90 percent of spending goes toward personnel, he says. Williams is authorized for 352 officers, but 332 is the current monthly average. Eleven positions funded by 2015 grants will be filled before August.

“We did get some surveillance video, right?” the chief asks of a recent string of three convenience store robberies.

Williams projects a no-nonsense air but pivots easily on softer topics, such as the Special Olympics event he’ll lead this weekend or the police picnic in June.

As part of his May 16 City Council report on citations, the chief notes an 11 percent increase in calls prompting officer responses. There were nearly 94,000 last year.

By 10 a.m. it’s time to catch up on emails and paperwork in his office adorned with framed golf balls and a “topcop” license plate from the Missouri Police Chiefs Association; he was named 2015 Police Chief of the Year.

“Probably the thing that’s always in the back of my mind is officer safety,” says Williams, who earns $139,000 as chief. “That concern or worry that I’m going to get that call in the middle of the night that someone has been hurt is always weighing on you.”

When officer Aaron Pearson was shot in the head in the line of duty in January 2015, Williams woke up to sit with Pearson’s wife at the hospital. The chief was with her when doctors said her husband may never walk again.

At 11 a.m., Williams makes a quick stop at the airport to say goodbye to his mother, who was flying home to Florida after an extended visit for his daughter’s graduation. By noon, he’s at Community Partnership of the Ozarks to talk about a plan to reinvigorate the Crime Stoppers program.

More paperwork and emails call his name in the afternoon, as well as an interview with the News-Leader regarding an editorial on prisoner transports. At 3 p.m., he begins a pair of United Way of the Ozarks meetings at KY3.

The night closes with a family dinner at Olive Garden. He had hoped to rest, but wanted to reward the kids amid a whirlwind of soccer games and cap tosses. Family isn’t something he wants to take for granted.

“All the administrative stuff, staffing and crime rates always run around in my head. It’s always at the forefront of what I’m doing,” he says. “But at the back of my head, nagging, is that my folks are safe and they’re getting home to their families.”