Greensboro’s loss is UNC Chapel Hill’s gain.
Greensboro Police Chief Brian James isn’t going to be retired for very long.
UNC announced that James would take over as the chief of the UNC Police on July 1.
In April, James announced that he was retiring as chief of the Greensboro Police Department on May 31. So James will work his 24/7 job as Greensboro police chief until the end of May, take the month of June off and then report to work on July 1.
James is a native of Greensboro and a graduate of Page High School and North Carolina A&T State University. He began his work in law enforcement with the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department and joined the Greensboro Police Department in 1996 and moved up the ranks until he was promoted to chief on Feb. 1, 2020.
UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz announced James had been hired in a letter that states, “In our recruitment for a new police chief, the search committee made it the highest priority not just to find someone with police and safety experience, but also to find a leader who puts the community first and has a history of developing relationships within their community. I am confident that Chief James upholds these values.”
The UNC Police have 60 sworn officers and 19 reserve officers.
Greensboro has an authorized police force of 679 sworn officers and currently has about 100 vacancies, which means Greensboro has more vacancies than the UNC Police have in sworn and reserve officers combined.
James started a number of successful outreach programs to engender better relationships between the Police Department and the community during his tenure as Greensboro police chief.
According to the UNC Police website, “The UNC Police Department’s greatest goal is to provide customer-focused and problem solving services in partnership with the diverse community it serves. The UNC Police Department strives to achieve this goal through community oriented policing (COP) efforts which includes COP programming, crime prevention and fostering relationships with the community on and off campus.”
It sounds like James will fit right in.
Who would not leave under the circumstances? Remember voters this council does not support police. They have “defunded” the police by not providing the salary and benefits that would allow the department to be at full strength. By the end of the year the vacancies will be well over 100. Ask how many are left in the current academy.
That answer is 13 cadets in the academy, which is about how many people have left the agency in 2 months. Let’s see, they lose 60 to 70 people per year. They are rocking a solid 13 people in this academy and will seat about the same in the next one. Let me do some quick math here..100 vacancies, plus thirteen, minus 60….. carry the one…. Yep, the Chief got it right. ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP! ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!
Agree. This is a simple case of defunding by omission. The council, led by Nancy, is simply jumping on board Chief James’ motto of “we are doing more with less”. The council has run with that statement and is letting the chief sink his own ship. Sure, you can stretch yourself thin and burn your people out while accomplishing “more with less”, but it’s not a viable long term strategy. Council is just letting the agency fall apart to the point that the chief of police himself has called it quits after 2 years. If that’s not a sign that “doing more with less” has failed, I don’t know what is.
Well, Nancy and Company, you have successfully run off your own chief of police. You have failed to make GPD’s pay competitive with the region. You have failed to implement a take home car program or any other worthwhile benefits package that puts GPD on the map. You have failed to stop the exodus from the GPD ranks. You have failed to keep your citizens safe. We can only hope you fail at getting re-elected as handily as you have failed your citizens.
Excellent! Greensboro City Council should be kicking themselves for letting a professional slip away.
There was but one requirement that topped UNC’s list
Thank you city council with special pat on the back for Ms Hightower . You took one of our very best officers and within a short time, ran him off as he tried to make our police department an even better place to work and help our city. This is just one reason I will not be voting for any incumbents. All of you need to leave.
Best Wishes to. Fine leader.
I hope he’s not going from one set of liberal thugs to even more. At least he won’t have to deal with Queen Nancy as I heard he had to put of with a lot of BS from her and that is why he left as the rank and file who served under him loved the guy.
Good for him. Hope it works out for him.
Chief James is a great leader and we shall always wish him the very best in what is career path is !!!
Aye!
A “leader” that treaded water for two years and then left. How does that encourage the lower ranking, underpaid officers who do not have the benefit of a take home car (all of the command staff and others do) to stay. It would be my signal to leave (maybe I already have).
I posted a message the other day that does not seem to have come through. So I’ll see if I can catch the gist of what I had said and give it another go.
Why is everyone calling James a “great leader”? Great leaders do not give up and abandon their people in the midst of a crisis. The old biddies on city council got on the chief’s nerves. He rolled over and took for a while and then abandoned ship when he got tired of their lip. Meanwhile, the officers are stuck here and looking at over 100 officer vacancies with a whopping 13 people in the academy to provide minimal relief while 60 more are walking out the door before the year’s end. GPD is also now coasting policy-wise because no interim chief is going to make any policy or procedural changes on their own. So here they are, a rudderless ship running toward the waterfall of 200+ officer vacancies coming soon to a GPD near you, while the chief bails and takes a $200k job to pull a second pension.
A great leader? I think not. Great leaders stay and guide their people through a crisis. They do not abandon their men and women during the crisis.
Good luck chief! You deserve better and hopefully have those who will support you and your department. Truly sad the ignorance, stupidity and lack of support of the current city council, mayor included has for our police department, our tax dollars and our citizens of Greensboro.
At our current rate of attrition at the GPD; it won’t be long until we will be self-policed.
After the Nov mid-terms, if all this is not turned around, it will be time to get out of Dodge.
I hope he enjoys working at a well funded and well supported department.