Barber, 47, was officially appointed chief on July 1, ending an interim period that began back in January and beginning a dream he first had after becoming a police officer in May of 1980 under Chief W.M. Moss.
“Someimes I can’t believe it even happened. I see it as a privelege to even sit in this chair,” Barber said from his office at the Cedartown Police Department (CPD).
According to Barber, he grew up in Fish Creek and graduated from Rockmart High School. He said he first came to work as a Cedartown police officer at the age of 22.
“I was not that familiar with Cedartown when I first came to work over here, “ he said. “Now, I don’t know many people in Rockmart anymore. This [Cedartown] is home.”
A few times a month Barber can be seen walking down Main Street in uniform, interacting with and getting aquainted with local residents, a strategy which he said he learned from Moss.
“I try to get out and about and interact with the people. If there is a problem they will tell me.”
In fact, when Barber first joined the CPD he “walked the beat” as a patrol officer. However, over the years his career as a law enforcer has encompassed many different areas of police work.
After spending six years at the Cedartown Police Department, Barber said he took a job with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. During his time at the Sheriff’s Office, Barber was even promoted to Chief Deputy.
However, by November of 1988 Barber said he realized that his old department was where he belonged, taking a drastic pay cut and returing to Cedartown under Chief John Dean as a patrol officer.
“I missed it,” he explained. “When I worked with the Sheriff’s Office I used to come up here and visit about once a week. When I walked in that back door I felt like this was a home I had left.”
Several years later Barber was assigned to the Polk County Drug Task Force, though, he remained an employee of the city of Cedartown.
The drug problem Cedartown faced then was drastically different from what the city is seeing now, he said.
“When I was a drug agent we had heard of crystal meth, but that was a California problem. We had never seen any.”
Illegal drug trafficking is what Barber considers to be the biggest crime affecting Cedartown.
“The more we can supress that, the more we can supress other crimes that this creates.”
By 1997, after a few years as a drug agent and once again as a patrol officer, Barber was promoted to Detective Sargent. In 2003, Barber was named Chief Investigator, where he remained until Dean’s retirement at the end of 2004.
After being named interim chief, Barber was forced to adapt to his new position quicklly, as just four days later a Cedartown man was murdered.
“I thought … this is starting out real good. We’ve had a shooting and a murder and I’ve only had this office four days,” Barber said.
Since becoming chief, Barber said he has instituted some changes at the department, including making promotions and purchasing new leather gear for all his officers.
“That was a big morale booster.”
While he said he enjoyed his time as a patrol officer and a drug agent, being chief has been the most satisfying. And of all his duties as chief, Barber said he enjoys being able to motivate and interact with his officers, as well as the citizens of Cedartown.
“If these officers feel good about who they are and if they feel pride in their job, I think they will perfrom their duties in a more professional manner.”
Barber, along with his predecessors John Dean and W.M. Moss, are the only three men to have served as Cedartown police chief in the last 53 years.
Post a Comment