Cathy Ackerman: Welcome to Sweet Tea and Strategy, a podcast by Ackermann Marketing and PR, featuring business and community leaders throughout Tennessee talking about issues and trends of importance to our state and beyond, and sharing some of their very best sweet tea recipes and tea sippin' stories. I'm Cathy Ackermann, and we're so pleased to welcome Knoxville Police Department Chief Eve Thomas to our podcast today. Welcome.
Chief Eve Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate being here.
Cathy Ackerman: You are so welcome. Let's start by asking you a little bit about sweet tea. Are you a Southerner, and if so, did you grow up on sweet tea?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, actually, funny story to that. I moved to the South from Chicago when I was 12 years old, so many, many years ago. As far as my best sweet tea story, it's a little interesting because at that time, at least in Chicago, we had never heard of sweet tea. I had never heard of sweet tea. We thought tea was hot, so when we ordered tea and it came cold, it was kind of unusual for us. But I have grown to like it. Unfortunately, as my size expanded, I had to go with unsweet tea. But I do know that my mother-in-law made the very best sweet tea that I have ever had, and she always heated the sugar to a liquid first, and it's the best way to do it. My husband and I bought one of the Mr. Coffee hot tea or the iced tea makers, and we've used that in the past and we still use that occasionally for my sons. But yes, that's my sweet tea story. I love it.
Cathy Ackerman: Yeah. So even though you're from Chicago, you've grown to like sweet tea and even have something to make it with. So that's good. Okay. So thanks for indulging us in that brief intro. And we want to now turn to your challenging but hopefully very rewarding job as Chief of Police here in Knoxville. First of all, how long have you been a law enforcement officer, and how did you get started in this career? What really brought you to it?
Chief Eve Thomas: Actually, as of yesterday, 28 years I have been here. I've actually been with the Knoxville Police Department all 28 years. So I learned everything that I bring to the table as part of the career I started here. Prior to that, I was actually in retail management for about 10 years. So it was quite a change. It was almost on a whim. My brother had wanted to become a Knoxville Police Department officer and asked me to go with him, and I thought, well, that sounds kind of interesting. I'm going to go apply too. And I got on and he didn't. And I knew immediately it was my niche. It was just, you know, there are so many different directions, so many ways to help people. I have a bachelor's in psychology and an MS in security that I got my master's while employed here at the KPD. But it just became something I had such a passion for. I never envisioned myself being in the position I'm in now, but it's just been such a rewarding career.
Cathy Ackerman: Right. And such a natural progression for you, it seems like. So what are the most significant changes that you've seen? And there no doubt have been so many over the past few years, both in terms of your overall department and in the ways in which you manage things. What are the big changes there?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, as far as the department, I've been through—I am actually the fourth chief in my career. We started with Chief Phil Keith, who hired me, and he's a great visionary. He had wrote a document that went 10 years beyond where we were. He got us involved in accreditation through CALEA, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, which we are still involved in today, which has been a huge help to us. He was the chief for the majority of my career until 2004. And then we had Chief Sterling Owen IV. Again, just taught me how to be a real people person. Real understanding of people and their issues. So you got that combination of those two leaders. I really learned a lot from those combinations. And then my third chief was Chief David Rausch, who was actually in my recruit class. So I knew him all along, and he is now our TBI Director. So I still have a good relationship with him. In fact, he visits quite often. He was here just last Friday, I believe. And so that's been really good. So I have gained a lot through the progression of my ladder up in my career just from the leaders who have led the department.
Cathy Ackerman: Yes. You've had some great mentors. How large, by the way, is the Knoxville Police Department in terms of personnel and budget?
Chief Eve Thomas: So we are authorized for 416 sworn officers and about 110 civilians. So that's a lot of people to keep track of. Right now, we actually have about 366 sworn as of today. So we're working on improving that, as you well know. And so that's quite a feat. But we have a budget of about $56 million, $56-58 million. Most of that is taken up with our personnel expense.
Cathy Ackerman: I bet. I bet. Well, and many police departments, ours included as you've just alluded to, have struggled to recruit enough officers in the past few years. Why is that, and what strategies are you employing in particular to try to help with that recruitment effort?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, I think over the years, you know, what we've always found, at least through my career, is when the economy is bad and things are hurting, people gravitate towards police work because it is a very steady job. It's a low-to-moderate income job, but it's always here. So, you know, as far as high-paying jobs, when the economy is really good, people gravitate away from that. But what I have found here recently in the past four to five years, as it's difficult for us to hire, is that even though we have a smaller pool of applicants, what we're finding is that, at least in the last two classes, they give me great hope because these are people who truly have a heart to serve. They are here for the right reasons, and they are here to stay, I believe. I hope. So that has really given me great hope, even though, like I said, our pool of applicants is quite a bit smaller and we're working on improving that. But I saw this quote somewhere and I really liked it. It said, "We need intelligent, diverse, and motivated officers who are willing to risk their own safety while also learning from their mistakes." Perfect. It's important to realize that we do make mistakes and we try to minimize those mistakes through training and experience and leadership, but we do make some.
Cathy Ackerman: What type of job candidates are you seeking? Are they, you know, in what categories does the work fall if people are thinking about changing careers?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, I think you need to have a genuine interest in helping people and assisting people, you know, wanting to improve your community, the place you live. And it doesn't even have to be your very own community, your neighborhood. I spend most of my time in the Knoxville community even though I don't live within the city. So I have a great passion for being here and making this place that I want to see to live, work, and play. My son goes to UT. So I have, you know, a passion for this area. But you've got to make want to make that piece of your existence and where you are working a better place.
Cathy Ackerman: So is Knoxville able to be competitive in terms of reaching out to and attracting top candidates nationally? And how does our high quality of life that we talk about a lot in terms of economic development circles, how does that contribute to your job in terms of attracting people to come here who may not know anything about Knoxville?
Chief Eve Thomas: So, and you have assisted us with this and made us a lot more marketable in the area. Things we already knew, we're actually putting into practice now and able to reach a larger audience. But Knoxville is a great place. We have great outdoors, we have, you know, great leadership in the community. We have things to do within the city. We're developing, we're thriving. And so we're able to count on that. We have a great support for the police department within our community and policing in general. And so, you know, one of the areas we're reaching out to is law enforcement officers from across the country who might want to come here and raise a family. You know, we realize now that when I was hired 28 years ago, if you didn't say, "I want to retire with the Knoxville Police Department," you probably weren't looked at very hard. But in my class of 35, there were over 1,200 applicants. So it's a little bit different now. And we also realize that the younger generation now, they move around a lot. They don't envision themselves staying in one place for very long. Very true. Yes. But with Knoxville being such a great place to live, we figure if we can get them to say, "Hey, five to seven years," and they get here or even if they live here, they get a solid job, they start raising a family, they're not going to want to move some place else for just a little bit more money.
Cathy Ackerman: Yeah. And I think that's true of a lot of businesses, ours included. You know, if we can get people from larger metropolitan areas to actually come here and experience the quality of life, they usually don't want to leave. And, you know, we've seen that with some of the larger companies who have come to Knoxville. You know, Scripps Network, and before that Whittle Communications, World's Fair even way back when, where people came here thinking, "What is Knoxville exactly?" And even after the job that they came for was gone, they stayed and figured out other things to do. So I do think that the experience of Knoxville firsthand is a good one. How have high-profile events of the past year that have affected police officers and their image, if you will, affected the Knoxville Police Department? Have you had to spend more time on crisis management than you used to, or what that whole world of high visibility that police officers are in right now, how does that impact us here?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, what we have learned is that one incident 1,200 miles away—and we talk about Minneapolis—has painted a broad brush across all of law enforcement. Right. As it should, but you have, you know, in the United States, you have over 18,000 law enforcement agencies. Over 800,000 law enforcement officers. So the potential for somebody to make a misstep or an agency to hire somebody who is not a good fit for this career is astronomical. And we try and mitigate that with our practices. So yes, we have spent time, you know, doing crisis management, but part of that has been battling perception and making sure that our community's perception of us is what they want it to be. So we have adjusted some of our policies. We took a hard look at our use of force policy and, you know, even though we never had chokeholds, we took out what's called the lateral vascular neck restraint because we realized the image of an officer with an arm around someone's neck, even though this was a very effective less-lethal response, was not good, not what our community wanted. There has been a lot of positive change as far as having that dialogue and really hearing what's important to our community and trying to adjust the way we do our business so that we are what the community wants.
Cathy Ackerman: That's so critical these days. I applaud you for taking that into consideration in terms of how you manage the department. Do you have any predictions for how police officers' jobs may morph or change over the next couple of years, and what forward-thinking police departments are doing perhaps to prepare for that?
Chief Eve Thomas: I think you're going to see technology playing a huge part. And, you know, we always talk about, you know, at least in government, we lag behind a little bit in the technology sector. So those are a few things that we're looking at as we move toward the future and things that we want to see. You know, we want to have—and some cities have this, but we want to have a multi-agency, what's called a real-time crime center. Where we can take this video and we can take all these stats and hotspot policing and all these computer algorithms and share them. Not only use them for our agency, but share them with the county and with 911 and, you know, anybody else who wants them. There's a lot of initiatives, you know, there are fusion centers, but there's a governor's initiative to where we can share all of our data with any agency in Tennessee. Because, you know, our people who commit crimes don't stay in one area. Exactly. And they're not conscious of county lines. Exactly. And the more information we can share and provide to others and receive, the better off our community is going to be.
Cathy Ackerman: And of course, healthcare has moved in that direction in terms of being able to share patient health information that's critical with each other. So yes, I think that technology will probably play a huge role in terms of where you move. As a female police officer, police chief, which I assume puts you in a minority of law enforcement leaders, what kind of challenges have you faced as your career has progressed as a female in a pretty male-dominated arena?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, you know, I knew this coming in, so I think, you know, that I was kind of prepared for that. I have two brothers. Right now in my family, I've got a husband, two sons, and all of our animals—three cats and a dog—are male. So I've kind of learned to do that. The only thing that I can ever think that was kind of really just grated on me was I had put in for a school, I wanted something I wanted to do early on in my career, and we were sending two officers to this school and they had picked a male officer and I couldn't go because we couldn't—we couldn't get two hotel rooms. And I thought, that is—oh my goodness. Right. But you know, that's a minor thing in the broad scheme of things. You know, it has been a great ride. I think through my career, and I credit the female officers who have gone before me, I've been accepted. I think moving up the ladder within my own department, officers know what to expect from me. They know how I work. I don't have to prove anything to anybody, which has been huge. I can't imagine going to another agency and having to start with people who don't know me. I think that has been a great benefit to me.
Cathy Ackerman: What advice would you give to women who are seeking careers and advancement in typically non-traditional roles for women? Is there any great advice that you can give them?
Chief Eve Thomas: I think just hang in there and talk to those before you. And we have a responsibility to reach back and pull others up as women. You know, I just participated in a women in criminal justice conference, a one-day conference here in Tennessee for female officers here in Tennessee. And you know, we talk to each other and, you know, child care, raising children, having children. I had two children while employed as an officer. It's a whole different ballgame, a whole set of things that our male counterparts don't have to deal with. Right. But it can be done. And I think when we talk to each other and we build each other up, that's huge. And I think females in general don't have that. And we try and foster that within the police department. We're more cutthroat with each other, and that's kind of sad. But we have—we're trying within the police department, you know, we have our female locker room talks and things like that.
Cathy Ackerman: That's great. Finally, what do you like best about your job? Of all the many things that you do within your job, what's your favorite?
Chief Eve Thomas: I think I have to say all the people I get to meet. And unfortunately, some of them I meet on their worst day. But getting to know perspectives and what is going on in other people's lives helps us to—as we police, helps us to understand, you know, how to do this better. The other thing that is of great personal value to me, and I tell my recruits this all the time, is we touch people in ways that we may never know. I tell them a story that I had where I was at a car wash, I think as a lieutenant, waiting there for my car, and I had a young man run up to me and he recounted a story on a call that I had completely forgotten about. And he said, "You changed my life. Here I am now, I'm going to college and I'm doing so much better." And so I always tell our recruits that, you know, you'll be on a routine call and you have the ability to change someone's life. So you always need to take the time and do what you need to do, because you never know, you know, what changes you can make in this profession because we touch so many people.
Cathy Ackerman: That's a great story to hear and to share. So I assume that you are now a permanent Knoxvillian. You've been here a long time. You're at the top of your career, if you will, in terms of having a wonderful position, and sounds like you are totally bought into East Tennessee.
Chief Eve Thomas: I have. Yes. Yes. Enjoy it here. Don't want to go anywhere else. This is where I will remain and retire. Yes.
Cathy Ackerman: So Chief Thomas, is there anything else that you'd like to talk about that we haven't covered, that you'd like to throw out there for our listeners?
Chief Eve Thomas: Well, of course I want to do my recruitment spiel. Go right it. Anybody who has an interest in policing or just wants to come see what we do, please think about it. We have a Citizens Police Academy. We hope to start maybe late spring or summer because of COVID we haven't been able to do that. So if you want to participate in the police department that way, that's huge to us to have those ambassadors out in the city speaking for us about what we do and how we do it. And the other thing is we're getting ready to start a volunteer program, and really a robust volunteer program. So, you know, we want people to come join us and help us do what we need to do and again be a voice for us because they know what we do and how we do it and help make us better. So I think that's my—if I could get that out there, I appreciate it.
Cathy Ackerman: That's wonderful. Thank you so much for being our guest on Sweet Tea and Strategy. We appreciate your good work and certainly your commitment to our community here in Knoxville in terms of helping to make it a better place and a safer place. And we just thank you for sharing a little bit about your organization and the critical role that it plays for all of us in this area. So thank you very much for being with us.
Chief Eve Thomas: Well thank you. I appreciate the opportunity and had a great time.
Cathy Ackerman: Thank you.
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