Millburn Police Chief to Retire Aug. 1

Millburn Police Chief David Barber will retire Aug. 1 after 37 years on the Millburn police force, the last three years of which were spent as chief.

“All those years…” he said. “It’s been great. The guys are so talented and hardworking, they’ve made my job easy.”

Barber turns 65 later this year and was faced with mandatory retirement at that time and decided to leave midway through the summer so he and his wife can travel and enjoy a vacation before settling into the role of full-time babysitters for their granddaughter.

He also plans to install child car seats at the Livingston Police Car Seat fitting station.

“I did that for a long time when I was an officer but haven’t had time since I’ve been chief,” he said.

When he looks back on the last 37 years of law enforcement in Millburn, it’s the changes that stand out – changes in technology, the town and in law enforcement.

“When I started we didn’t even have air conditioning in the patrol cars,” he said. “And we punched a time clock. Now cars have computers and video cameras.”

Sharing information with other departments and agencies has gotten easier, he said.

“I can remember when we got the first fax machine – that was big deal,” he said. “Now everything is done in email.”

The role of law enforcement changed also after Sept. 11 when homeland security and terrorism became a focus of the job. That day was particularly difficult for Millburn police as they waited to find out who would not returning home from home in Manhattan. They were on high alert for other terrorism attacks and doing what they could to help at the schools.

“We were concerned with how many children might have lost a parent,” he said.

Whether as a patrol officer, a sergeant, captain or chief, Barber has been a part of the township, living here and feeling responsible for keeping an eye on its residents.

The town has changed a lot – merchants downtown used to close up shop at 5 p.m. Charlie Brown’s was really the only place open for dinner, he said.

Crime has evolved too – it’s actually decreased in some areas like burglaries, car thefts and overall crime stats, but because the Mall at Short Hills was built, police see more shoplifting cases than they used to.

Of all the cases he’s been a part of, it is the 2003 murder-suicide that stays with him – a father killed his 7-year-old son and then killed himself by jumping in front of a train.

Other cases  that stay in his mind are more recent incidents of teenagers who were driving while drunk and ended up in accidents killing someone.

“They not only ruined the lives of the families of the victims, but their own lives will never be the same,” he said. “I think about that. When they get out of prison, their friends will be getting out of college. They have to live with what they’ve done forever.”

In the last 15 years, Barber has also been part of the Police Unity Tour that rides bicycles from here to Washington D.C. in three days to raise money for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Of the 15 years of the tour, Barber has ridden 10 times, including last year.

“In the first year we raised $18,000,” he said. “Last year they raised $1.5 million.”

One of the perks of being chief is having the office with the flagpole that dates back to 1917, during WWI, and has a plaque dedicated to the Millburn Home Defense Police Department.  When he moved into the office, the plaque was so tarnished it couldn’t be read, but he had a local jeweler clean it up.

Barber enjoys the history of the department, with its generations of police officers and pictures donated by the Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society that line the main hallway.  He knows the names of the people in those old black and white photos and stories behind each picture.

While Barber’s own history and institutional memory don’t go back as far as those pictures, he’s got 37 years of first-hand departmental history and that has been an asset to the force, said Capt. Jim Miller, the department’s public information officer.

“He will be missed,” Miller said.