Port Police Chief to Pick Up Role as President of FBI-LEEDA

Port Washington Police Chief Richard Thomas is heading to Nashville, TN, this weekend — but he's not dreaming of country music stardom.

Thomas will officially accept the national presidency of FBI-LEEDA, a professional organization committed to cultivating executive leadership in law enforcement.

"For me, it's really an honor," he said. "It's probably one of my top five career achievements in almost 40 years."

Thomas said he has been president of local associations and also a member of various different national groups but "never at this level."

LEEDA stands for Law Enforcement Executive Development Association. The association's mission, as written on its web site, is to:

• advance the science and art of law enforcement leadership and management
• develop and disseminate improved administrative, operational and technical practices
• promote the exchange of information and training for executives of law enforcement
• pursue educational excellence through continued public and private partnership programs

Members interested in assuming a leadership role in the group run for the lowest elected position known as "sergeant at arms." The person selected for that role then automatically moves up the ladder, to third, second and first vice president, then to president and finally immediate past president. Each role is held for one year.

All members of the FBI-LEEDA group have completed some sort of training offered by FBI Academy, LEEDS or a command college program. Thomas said he's completed all three.

His favorite, he said, was the LEEDS course, where he spent two weeks with a group of only about 30 people. Other courses are held on separate dates, with larger groups of people, making it a less personal learning experience, he said.

"The issues we discussed were very contemporary and futuristic," he said.

A learning experience

Thomas said the majority of his officers have had the chance to take at least one course offered by FBI-LEEDA.

The association has also put quite a bit of attention on using a distance learning program to teach its courses, he said. Thomas has been highly involved in piloting the distance learning program along with the previous year's president, Don Dixon. The distance learning program offers a Supervisory Liability program, and the first run session of the course has recently completed.

Two Port police department employees — Capt. Michael Keller and Lt. Tom Barbuch — will receive an award from FBI-LEEDA for completing three courses it offers. Keller will accompany Thomas to the conference in Nashville, and the two will bring back the award for Barbuch.

Bringing it home

Thomas said his new role provides training and networking opportunities with departments around the nation, bringing new ideas for policing strategies.

For instance, the Port Washington Police Department is piloting a strategy called "script patrols," which creates structured tasks at certain times throughout the officer's patrol shift, based on trends for crimes that typically occur at that time of the day, Thomas said. The trends are also calculated seasonally.

Officers are testing the theory on third-shift patrols in Port Washington. The plan can narrow tasks to specific 45-minute windows in targeted locations — for example, searching for parking violations along a particular street from 3 to 3:45 a.m.

Keeping busy

His role as president of the FBI-LEEDA will send Thomas on the road more often. For instance, he will be in Sun Valley, ID, in June to represent FBI-LEEDA during a conference hosted by the Major City Chiefs Police Association. Other stops include Long Beach, CA, San Antonio, TX and Chicago.

The conference that Thomas will attend in Nashville features several speakers with a wide range law enforcement experiences. They include: Gary Gracey, the superintendent of Police Service of Northern Ireland, who will discuss counterterrorism strategies used in the country; Richard T. Garcia, who was involved in the capture of Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent convicted of espionage; and Bob Boback, the CEO of Tiversa, a company that works with law enforcement and uses the internet as a tool to catch certain criminals.

His new role is something that Thomas said only makes a positive impact locally.

"I think it's a real honor for the department, and for the community," he said.