Walter Armstrong never had ambitions of becoming the Vicksburg chief of police, but now that he has the job, he said he’s ready for the challenge of leading one of the city’s largest, most scrutinized and most important departments.

“I started in law enforcement when I was 22, and I really set out to work my way up the ranks of the highway patrol,” said the 48-year-old Armstrong, who retired from Mississippi Highway Patrol at the end of June with 25 years of patrolling and administrative experience. “I never set out to become the chief of police. However, knowing I was ending my career with the highway patrol, I wanted to do something different — this was just good timing.”

The timing worked like this: Armstrong said he began thinking of opening a new chapter of his career in the spring, just as Mayor Paul Winfield — then one of four Democratic challengers for the city’s top spot — began calling for former Police Chief Tommy Moffett’s job.

Laurence Leyens — the two-term independent incumbent whom Winfield eventually beat with a convincing 61.6 percent of the vote — said he’d stand by Moffett, whom he had hired in 2001 shortly after taking office. Winfield had not intended to make the police chief issue a cornerstone of his platform, but public interest brought it to the fore of the mayoral race after he took the May 5 primary.

Soon, petitions to keep and get rid of Moffett were circulating. A number of resumes flooded Winfield’s mailbox, and Armstrong decided to add his to the stack shortly after Winfield won the June 2 election.

Winfield kept his cards close to his chest for weeks following his win, but eventually said he would nominate Armstrong — a Batesville native who has lived in Warren County for about 15 years. A tense nomination process began immediately. South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman said he wouldn’t support a change in police leadership and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield called for a 30-day moratorium on the appointment — which he did not get support on — to research the tough choice on which he suddenly became the swing vote. Four days after Winfield nominated Armstrong, Mayfield sided with the new mayor and Armstrong was sworn in on July 10, hours after being appointed by a 2-1 vote of the board of mayor and aldermen. 

Despite the intense public speculation and political rhetoric surrounding his nomination and appointment, Armstrong said the pressure he feels as the new chief is more internal than external.

“The pressure is — well, I’ll put it this way — I want to make a real difference in this city. I want to be able to look back someday and say I helped move the department in the right direction; I took it to the next level,” he said. “I like to see things happen, and I like to see them happen sooner than most — that’s really the pressure I feel.”

With an annual budget of roughly $6.25 million, more money is spent on the Vicksburg Police Department than any of the 35 line item departments in the city. Armstrong identified two main goals: reducing violent crime and addressing what he sees as shortfalls in staffing. Achieving the latter goal will aid in achieving the former, he said, but he acknowledged both will take some time.

“We are not going to sacrifice the integrity of this department just to raise the numbers,” he said of recruiting. “People hold police officers to a higher standard, and they should. We have to be held to a higher standard.”

The department has 71 officers on the force, including patrolmen, detectives and administrators. When Moffett took office, the department had 105 officers — an all-time high. He pared that number to about 65, saying the department had become too top heavy, which resulted in too much wasted time. Armstrong said he aims to get the number of officers back up to around 85 and see if additional officers are needed. Six officers are currently in training, and he said eight more are expected to head to the academy soon.

Meanwhile, the No. 2 position remains in limbo. The deputy chief’s spot is currently held by Richard O’Bannon who, like Moffett, came to Vicksburg in 2001 from Biloxi. While Beauman had twice nominated O’Bannon for reappointment, he could not get a second to his motion from Winfield or Mayfield. The mayor said Armstrong should come back to the board with a recommendation, whether it’s O’Bannon or someone else.

“I haven’t made a decision yet, and I don’t want to make that decision in haste,” Armstrong said, adding he does not have a timeline in mind for making a recommendation.

As for battling violent crime in Vicksburg, Armstrong plans to start by bringing back a community policing concept that he said was abandoned during Moffett’s time at the helm. The NET — which stands for Neighborhood Enhancement Team — will assign small groups of plainclothes officers to neighborhoods in the city where complaints and crimes are frequent.

“I want to aggressively address the hot spots in the city where we’re seeing gang activity, drug dealing, assaults and other violent crimes taking place,” he said. “Beyond NET, we want to become more visible in all of our neighborhoods and promote more community policing.”

The most vital key to successful community policing, said Armstrong, is the community — and he encourages everyone in Vicksburg to change the way they see police and to aid his officers in rooting out crime in their backyards.

“This is a team effort. We’re asking the community to join with us in our effort to make Vicksburg a safer community that we can all be proud of,” he said. “People have to change their way of thinking. They have to do more than just say they want a safe community; they have to become involved in reporting crimes and interacting with our officers in a helpful way.”

An issue Moffett took a lot of heat over as chief was a sharp rise in traffic citations issued during the last few years of his tenure. He increased the number of officers assigned solely to traffic patrol from two to four in 2007. The number of traffic tickets written — primarily for non-seat belt compliance, speeding, no driver’s license and no insurance — rose from 4,619 in 2006 to 9,558 in 2008.

Before taking on administrative duties with MHP in 1994, Armstrong’s primary duty for the decade previous was patrolling. With that in mind, he said he doesn’t intend on changing patrolling duties and added the citizens of Vicksburg shouldn’t expect to get away with speeding or not buckling up just because Moffett is out of office. 

“Safety on our roadways is just as important as safety in our homes. We have to have enforcement. We are not interested in any quotas and we’re not interested in over-aggressive traffic enforcement, but we are very interested in the safety of those who are on our roadways,” he said. “Sometimes a warning can be just as effective as a ticket — that’s up to the officer on patrol — but when our officers are out on the streets I expect them to be looking for all violations.”

Armstrong is a graduate of Alcorn State University with a master’s degree, and in 2006 he completed a 10-week training course at the prestigious FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va. — a program less than 1 percent of the nation’s law enforcement officers complete. He and his wife, Janice, have been married for 23 years, have four grown sons and one granddaughter. They are currently looking for a home in Vicksburg, as the city charter calls for the police chief to live in the city limits within 180 days of being sworn in. 

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com