The New Sheriff in Town: Catching up with Police Chief Dennis Brown After His First Summer on Folly
By Joel Flores
The similarities are hard to ignore. For starters, both Folly Beach Director of Public Safety Dennis Brown and fictional lawman Andy Taylor both speak with a down-home, southern twang. Like the popular television sheriff, Brown doesn’t carry a weapon while on duty. He actually hails from a small town — Thomasville, North Carolina — located about thirty minutes from where the fictitious town of Mayberry, North Carolina supposedly existed. He even has the whistling themed song of “The Andy Griffith Show” as the ringtone on his cell phone.
Even though Brown is the face of law and order for a community often referred to as “Mayberry by the Beach”, he’ll be the first to tell you; he’s no Andy Griffith peacemaker. To Brown, Folly Beach is more like Disneyland than Mayberry. It’s a place where people come to have fun and enjoy the sights while a team of hard working people do their jobs to make sure everyone has a safe and memorable Folly Beach experience.
Chief Dennis Brown took over the reins of the Public Safety Department on April 1. Upon his arrival, a suggestion was made to the new director that it would perhaps best serve the community if the police and fire departments remained separate. After giving ear to such recommendations, the 26-year law enforcement veteran decided that keeping the departments separate was not the best option. He decided to utilize and maximize the current resources the city already had, rather than create more bureaucracy.
According to Chief Brown, who serves as chief of both the police and fire departments, new employees will no longer be hired on the basis of doing just one thing; that employee will have to work wearing different hats. Police officers will have to fight fires and dispatch. Firefighters will have to become what is called ‘limited sworn officers’ so they can help with some things that concern the beach, like parking. With all Public Safety members participating in this type of cross-training, they will become better aware of just how important each other’s job is and how it impacts our community.
Another resource Brown plans to continue utilizing is the Beach Management Patrol (BMP). As ambassadors of the beach, this group helps maintain a proactive approach toward the issues concerning the beach by communicating with a smile and a trash bag, rather than a threat of a possible fine.
Public Safety will always be a work in progress, says Brown — “Once we stop moving forward. That’s when we start moving backward.” To maintain the Police/Fire/BMP team effort, the North Carolina native plans to put forth a series of ideas into fruition. For example, by next season, Chief Brown plans on having all BMP members CPR-trained. During the off season, officers will be required to perform one “foot patrol” per shift to help foster a bond between the community and its public safety department. Brown hopes this initiative will provide the shop-keepers and citizens an opportunity to approach their public servants in a non-confrontational and non-emergency setting, thus improving dialogue between the two parties.
Also, in an effort to build a bridge between the people of Folly Beach and the Public Safety Department, Chief Brown is extending the space and capacity of the Public Safety training room and its availability to anyone in the Folly Beach community for parties, meetings, social gatherings and other community uses.
One of the first initiatives taken by the new Director to make this positive interaction possible was to make his officers more approachable, starting with their appearance. The staff has been very receptive of uniform changes aimed at improving officer morale and the conditions they work under. Chief Brown had the department change from the dark, traditional military oriented uniforms to the more relaxed, comfortable, shorts-sporting uniforms already seen on our men and women in blue this summer. (Appropriately enough, it’s a shade of blue that says “Yes. I serve and protect a beach community” while perhaps also proudly proclaiming “Go Carolina Panthers!”) With the much more relaxed uniform, Brown hopes his staff will come across as more engaging. He’s encouraging FB’s finest to go out and be more interactive with the people of the community.
“I don’t believe in forced compliance. I believe in voluntary compliance,” the chief explains. “We’re not here to write tickets.”
Brown’s hope is that when approached by an officer, the party in question will voluntarily rectify the situation so that the officer won’t have to.
In regards to the Fire Department, the issue wasn’t the type of uniform the fire fighters were wearing so much as it was the lack of uniforms. For the last ten years, Folly Beach fire department personnel had no uniforms. Thanks to Chief Brown’s efforts, now they do.
With on-going hot-button issues such as drinking on the beach, litter on the beach, and dogs on a leash, Chief Brown believes that between the facilities, the training and resources made available for he and his staff, the Public Safety Department will succeed in meeting the will of the people when it comes to dealing with these and other beach related matters. In fact, with all of these items, the biggest challenge Chief Brown foresees involves the return of the dispatch system and how to make sure all the entities that fall under the Public Safety umbrella get equal treatment upon its return.
Finally, ask Chief Dennis Brown why he doesn’t carry a gun while on duty and he’ll tell you it’s a distraction. In his experience, a sidearm has only proven to be a diversion of ones attention from what he is trying to say to — “Oooo. Look! A gun!”
Talking to the people of Folly Beach is something Chief Brown hopes to do even more now that the season has passed. Especially since Folly Beach is now both Chief Brown’s place of employment and home to he and his wife, Amanda, and their two dogs. But, he doesn’t want to be the only one doing all the talking. In fact, if you happen to catch Chief Brown taking a walk around the streets of Folly Beach, don’t be afraid to address our new chief as “Dennis.”
“Only the people I work with call me ‘Chief’. Everyone else calls me Dennis.” he remarks, adding that he hopes Folly’s citizens will want to know who their director of Public Safety is and feel comfortable approaching him with a friendly “Hey!” The way our new Director of Public Safety sees it, when it comes to Folly Beach, “It’s my hometown now.”
Tweet
