Boatright gets Palmer chief job, for keeps

Palmer's city manager recently tapped the city's acting police chief to be the permanent head of the department.

After a months-long search, Palmer City Manager Tom Healy hired Russ Boatright to fill the position, which has been vacant since the former chief, Laren Zager, left in February to fly to East Timor.

The city of Palmer has advertised for a police chief three times since Boatright, formerly of the Anchorage Police Department, first came to Palmer.

"I've been involved in this department in one way or another since at least 1999," Boatright said. He served as a temporary patrol officer when the department was short staffed, as a sergeant, and as an interim chief.

Now Boatright has taken permanent command of the department, for which the city approved a $1,903,852 operating budget for 2001. The department is currently fully staffed, according to Boatright. City budget documents show the staff includes a total of 26 employees, 11 of whom are police officers. There was a total of $942,102 budgeted in 2001 for the department's salaries, with $62,059 budgeted for the chief's salary.

Boatright said he already has plans to request new equipment for the department from the city. One of the goals, he said, is to keep equipment such as patrol cars and radios on a regular replacement schedule.

"We have a couple of cars that are over 140,000 miles. They're pretty long in the tooth," he said.

Palmer's newest patrol car is a 2000 model and its oldest is a 1991. Boatright said he drives one of the older cars.

"The guys on the street need the best equipment. I do patrol, but I'm not out there as much as they are," he said. "It's paramount that they have the better equipment."

Boatright said the department recently applied for a $12,000 grant to be used on computers at the department, and that he also wanted to

install and replace video recorders in the patrol cars.

Currently four of the department's 11 cars have the recorders. Boatright said the cop cameras include a wireless microphone and remote so that audio outside the car can be transmitted to the dash-mounted camcorder. When the officer is interviewing a suspect outside the car the conversation can be recorded. Boatright said Palmer officers also carry microcassette recorders with them.

The department's manual is another area Boatright has targeted for management attention. The new chief is planning a complete redraft so the overly long manual will be more useful to officers.

"Plus, there are some things that just aren't in there," he said. "This manual first came about in the early '90s."

Palmer has since invested in new gear, Boatright said, some of which will require new policies. One example is a gun that fires bean bag rounds, which Boatright said he won't put on the street until policies are written and all the officers are on the same page.

"We're in the early stages of getting into the 'less lethal' perspective," Boatright said. He said the current manual has no policies for less lethal weapons, such as the bean bag rounds and pepper spray.

Boatright said police officers shouldn't use less lethal force without backup.

"One officer alone cannot use less lethal because it's not safe for the officer or for any bystanders that might be around," he said. "You need a minimum of two officers. There's been recorded instances of people being hit by 12-gauge bean bag rounds without [the rounds] stopping them . . . Now that's unusual, but it can happen."

The Palmer Police Department has been headed by three people since Chief Mike Lamb resigned in 1999 -- Walt Gilmour, Laren Zager and Russ Boatright.