Loading ...Outgoing Lebanese-American police chief reflects on 25 years with the force
Retiring Lawrence Police chief Tarik Khatib sits for an interview on Thursday, June 22, 2017 at the Investigations and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway. Khatib has served with the department for 25 years.
By: Sara Shepherd
Source: Lawrence Journal World
When Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib first became a police officer 25 years ago, he went into the job with a goal of helping people.
As Khatib prepares to retire, effective Monday, he said he has maintained that goal, though some of his initial idealism wore off quickly after he started his first beat.
“You really don’t see what people will do to each other or how people will get off track in a really bad place. That’s not something most people will see,” Khatib said. “The thing that keeps you going is to try to help people that have lost their way get back.”
Khatib, 50, announced in December that he would retire from the Lawrence Police Department. He has been chief since February 2011, after serving as interim chief for six months.
The city is in the process of choosing its next police chief; four candidates visited Lawrence June 15, and a new chief is expected to be announced this summer. Lawrence Police Capt. Anthony Brixius has been appointed to serve as interim chief beginning Sunday, until the new police chief starts.
Khatib has spent his entire career with the Lawrence Police Department.
He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and moved with part of his family to the Chicago area when he was 11, he said.
They were fleeing the civil war in Lebanon, he said, initially planning to return when things got better in a month or so. But the war went on for decades, and so the family stayed here.
Khatib first came to Lawrence to attend college at the University of Kansas. He started out majoring in aerospace engineering, he said, but shifted gears toward criminology and sociology, getting his degree in sociology in 1991.
Immediately after college, Khatib said he was working two jobs — one in the Dillons produce section and another early-morning shift unloading trucks at the UPS warehouse — when he spotted an ad for police officers. He applied, and started with the Lawrence Police Department in 1992.
Khatib said his proudest accomplishments as police chief are those that have improved the police department’s culture and employees.
“I think we’ve built a very strong group of individuals in the department,” he said.
That includes diversity initiatives, officer support efforts, technology implementation and crisis intervention training for officers. In crisis intervention training, Khatib said the department has about 80 percent of its officers trained, toward its goal of training 100 percent.
Groundwork has been laid to fund body cameras, which should start being deployed in 2018, Khatib said.
As for officer support, Khatib said he implemented peer support, chaplain services and an officer spousal support effort — all resources that can help officers and their families deal with their “hyper-vigilant” and often emotionally taxing jobs in a healthy way.
Also under Khatib, a Civilian Police Review Board has now formed; the department has published formal Taser use and Use of Force reports; a Criminal Justice Coordination Council is crunching data on police encounters; there’s a Mental Health Team staffed with officers and a Bert Nash Center co-responder; and the department has gone social with Twitter and Facebook.
A lot of these types of initiatives wouldn’t even have been considered 20 years ago, Khatib said, but they’re critically important now.
“For a police department, we always have to be relevant,” Khatib said. “Some things you just need to change with the times.”
Khatib said that “investment in people” is one way he’s tried to leave things in order for the next chief going forward.
Khatib said now was a good time for him to step away from the chief’s role.
“I believe in change,” he said.
Khatib said that during his time as chief he had promoted all of his captains, about 80 percent of the sergeants and hired most of the other officers.
“Every time I put somebody in a new position, there’s always been a new energy, new focus,” he said.
“I think it’s healthy for you to eventually write yourself out of the story.”
After 25 years, Khatib said he started to feel “a little tired.” Rather than stay too long and lose his energy and enthusiasm for the job, he decided it was time for a change.
Khatib said he does not currently have new professional plans, but that he’s going to give it some thought and possibly try something different to put his skill set to use.
Khatib said he would remain in Lawrence for now, and spend more time with his wife and children, ages 13 and 15 — something that’s been difficult in recent years as police chief.
“That takes away from your emotional engagement with your family,” he said, “and I want to circle back to that.”
