The Covington, Kentucky Police Department, located in Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky, is charged with law enforcement services for a city of 40,640, encompassing 13.7 square miles (35 km2) in northern Kenton County. Led by current Police Chief Colonel Bryan Carter, Assistant Chief Lieutenant Colonel Robert Nader, and Assistant Chief Lieutenant Colonel Brian Steffen.
Contents
History
Created in 1856, the department has grown to 110 sworn officers operating divided over 5 divisions, or bureau's. Currently housed at Central Police Headquarters, located at 1 Police Memorial Drive and Madison Avenue.
Patrol bureau
The patrol bureau is the largest of the department's five bureaus employing over 60% of the department's sworn personnel. It is functionally divided into three shifts providing round-the-clock police response to calls for service from throughout the community. Each shift is commanded by a lieutenant with the aid of three sergeants. In response to the diverse needs of the community, the patrol bureau also employs officers in a variety of specialty positions including bicycle patrol, canine patrol, and traffic officers. In order to support internal requirements for training newly hired police officers, the patrol bureau also employs a number of field training officers.
Crime Investigations Bureau
The Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB) handles all felony crimes and other investigations in the City of Covington. Detectives can be assigned cases after a patrol officer forwards an initial report, or detectives may have responded out to the initial call. Detectives are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The Criminal Investigations Bureau, currently staffed with nine detectives, has four sub-divisions: Major Crimes, General Investigations, Family Abuse, and the Crime Scene Unit. Major Crimes comprise homicide, robbery and rape investigations. General Investigations comprise assault, property crimes, missing persons, financial crimes, and arson investigations. Family Abuse comprises juvenile crime, domestic violence and crimes against family investigations. The Crime Scene Unit comprises three Crime Scene Investigators. They assist officers at crime scenes by photographing, preserving, collecting, processing, packaging and transporting evidence. The Crime Scene Unit uses cutting edge technology to obtain valuable evidence in the investigation of the crime scene. That cutting edge technology includes AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System), Alternate Light Sources, Ultra-Violet Light, Superglue, Luminol, Digital Photography.
Administrative Support Bureau
The Administrative Support Bureau provides a broad range of administrative services needed to sustain police operations. Among the most critical duties assigned to the bureau are: recruiting and hiring of personnel; facilities maintenance for all police facilities including the headquarters building and the vehicle impound lot; procurement, accountability, maintenance, and replacement of all equipment from uniforms to office furniture to vehicles; scheduling personnel for basic and annual in-service training through the Department of Criminal Justice Training; recording all training provided by a myriad of external training sources; conducting recurring and mandatory in-house training including weapons qualifications; and managing the department accreditation process.
Records and Technology Bureau
The Records and Technology Bureau comprises three main components, including the telecommunications center, the records section, and a coordinator for the agency's information/technology needs.
The telecommunications center is staffed 24 hours per day, 365 days per year by fourteen professional, well-trained, and highly experienced telecommunicators. They direct landline and cellular calls for service to the appropriate end point for prompt delivery of the required service. To accomplish their mission, these telecommunicators operate a variety of highly sophisticated electronic equipment including radio and telephone consoles, crime information terminals, and computer aided dispatching (CAD) equipment. In 2009 they received over 167,000 9-1-1 calls resulting in nearly 11,000 fire/ambulance CAD entries and over 78,000 police CAD entries.
The records section, is staffed from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, by four full-time and one part-time clerk.
Strategic Services Bureau
The Bureau of Strategic Service is the department's specialized community outreach unit. The unit strives to achieve effective crime prevention by educating the community in ways they can reduce their odds of being targeted by criminal activity. This includes organizing and attending monthly block watch meetings, performing public presentations and performing environmental analysis. The unit has several officers specializing in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (C.P.T.E.D.). These officers conduct site surveys for businesses, residences, and public areas and determine the best environmental layout to minimize the potential for criminal activity. Officers in the unit also utilize bike patrol, uniformed patrol, and covert operations to accomplish maximum officer presence and accessibility in high crime areas.
Line of duty deaths
EOW: Sunday, January 4, 1998 Cause: Drowned
EOW: Friday, July 26, 1968 Cause: Struck by vehicle
EOW: Friday, February 8, 1946 Cause: Gunfire
EOW: Thursday, November 10, 1938 Cause: Motorcycle accident
EOW: Friday, November 11, 1932 Cause: Gunfire
EOW: Monday, January 5, 1925 Cause: Gunfire
EOW: Sunday, May 13, 1923 Cause: Motorcycle accident
EOW: Friday, June 19, 1908 Cause: Gunfire
EOW: Tuesday, June 12, 1900 Cause: Gunfire
EOW: Sunday, February 28, 1869 Cause: Gunfire