New sheriff talks priorities

January 04, 2011|By Dustin Grove (grove@wsbt.com)

South Bend — Sheriff Mike Grzegorek may have a new title and a new office that comes with it, but as a 23-year law enforcement veteran, keeping people safe is familiar territory.

During his campaign, Grzegorek — most recently the assistant commander of the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit — was careful to call himself not a politician, but a police officer. Now officially sworn in and on the job, he says his top priority is getting more officers on the street.

“We are down 20 officers [from] four to six years ago, and our call volume has gone up,” he said.

Part of the plan to remedy that includes moving eight to ten county police officers from courthouse security back to road patrol. Those officers would be replaced by civilian security personnel.

"The judges seem to be really perceptive as do the commissioners I’ve spoken to,” he said.

Final approval would come from county commissioners and council members.

Grzegorek said another priority is a thorough review of the budget.

"For me, it's just - where is the money - what money we have, and that we're using it effectively," he said.

In December, Grzegorek named two long-time police officers as his chief and assistant chief. Chief Tim Decker has been in law enforcement for 35 years. Assistant Chief Bob Boits was a police officer for nearly 30 years and came out of retirement for the appointment.

Grzegorek said he's spending a lot of time speaking with jail staff and area police agencies about jail operations, too.

“Not that I think that there are a bunch of things wrong with our jail. I think that we have a really good jail, but we have to identify those things that we can improve upon.”

Although Grzegorek now occupies the sheriff’s office, he said he won’t spend all of his time behind the desk.

“I've spent most of my career being on call and being called out in the middle of the night, so not only will I have my daytime here where I'm doing administrative things, but I'll also have nights where I can go out and I can spend time on the shifts and see what they're doing or go down into the jail and see how they're doing, learn their jobs, and get to know the employees so I can get their input as well,” said Grzegorek.

“We want to be the most respected police department in the state of Indiana,” he said. “And all of our officers want that.”

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