New Alamogordo Police Chief takes office, talks priorities and challenges

The Alamogordo City Commission announced the name of the new Police Chief at its regular meeting on Tuesday.

City Manager Brian Cesar said former acting-Chief of Police Richard Denton "finally bit the bullet" and officially took the job.

The City initiated a nationwide search to find a new Chief of Police and Denton was one of the top candidates for the job.

"Denton was in the top four candidates from the first interview. He topped out in the second interview of the top four," Cesar said.

In the midst of moving his belongings to a new office, Denton took a minute to talk about his plans for the Police Department.

Denton said his current priorities are recruitment and retention, improving the workplace culture, gaining the trust of the officers within the department and continuing to develop Alamogordo Police Department's (APD) Mobile Crisis Response Team.

"I don't have the attitude that this is my department; this is everybody's department, even the community's department, somebody just has to run it and right now, I'm that guy," Denton said.

Denton said he plans to have every officer receive Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) although it will take some time.

"I'd like to have that up and going by the end of the year," Denton said.

Denton said there should be two CIT classes per year for law enforcement officers, medical providers or responders, or whoever signs up for the classes.

"We are trying to get more and more people involved in it," Denton said.

Right now, Denton said one clinician will start the program next week, APD will also have some support staff and an officer with the program.

"And some of the first things that will be going on with it, is they will go to some other agencies to see how their program works," Denton said.

Denton said he was confident APD will get to where it needs to be but said the Department has a few challenges to work through before its resources can be directed into programs, due to staff shortages.

“Everything has a purpose and trying to manipulate that right now, making sure we have the essential personnel where they are right now; I have a long road to go," Denton said.

"But I have confidence that we can get there, I have confidence in my supervision and we’ll get our department back to where we need to be, it’s just going to take us some time."

Denton said he developed good relationships with City and County departments and will continue to develop them.

"We have a bunch of projects in the works that we are doing, we're working with the Sheriff's Office very well, we are working with the County, building relationships and developing some relationships," Denton said. 

He said he hopes to create a "friendlier" environment where officers want to come to work.

Denton was born and raised in Alamogordo and worked at APD for most of his law enforcement career, beginning in 2000.

Cesar said the City looks forward to continuing to work with Denton.

"The City is looking forward to the continued progress that has been made by Chief Denton during his acting role," Cesar said.

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Cristina Carreon can be reached at ccarreon@alamogordonews.com, 575-437-7120 or on Twitter @Cris_carreon90.