In past posts on this blog I have challenged our nation’s police leaders to stand up and speak out about the crisis they are in.
Now Billy Ray Fields. a police officer from Ocilla, a small town in Southern Georgia, stands up and speaks out. It is reported that his father, Billy Ray Fields Sr., was also a police officer and served as a sheriff’s deputy and chief of police.
I served over 20 years as the chief of police in Madison (WI), four years as chief of the Burnsville (MN) Police Department, and before that as a police officer in Edina (MN) and the City of Minneapolis. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College in Madison. I have written many articles over my years as a police leader calling for police improvement (for example, How To Rate Your Local Police, and with my wife, Sabine, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience). After retiring from the police department, I answered a call to ministry, attended seminary, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. At the present time, I serve a small church in North Lake (WI), east of Madison. Sabine and I have nine adult children, eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She is also a retired police officer and we both continue active lives.
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Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 