Kent Police chief looks to new leaders

Chief Ken Thomas expects the Kent Police Department to move ahead “just fine” despite the retirements of three longtime officers.

Wayne Himple, Mike Painter and Brian Jones each will retire over the next month. They have worked a total of 97 years with the Kent Police.

“Our organization has a lot of very, very good employees, officers and commanders that will step up,” Thomas said during an interview last week at his office. “Although they won’t have some of those same levels of experience, I’m very confident that the personnel that we have will do a fantastic job of filling in for them when they leave.”

The retirements mean promotions for other officers.

“The positive impact is you get fresh ideas and new energy,” Thomas said. “It’s really an exciting time for opportunities for members of the department and opportunity for us to grow as an organization and be innovative and effective. We’re going to be just fine.”

Thomas said it’s “a big loss” of the trio that included an assistant chief, sergeant and detective. But the department started to plan ahead because of the current retirements as well as several other retirements over the last couple of years of high-ranking officers.

Kent reorganized its department last fall, dropping the deputy chief position and creating three assistant chief jobs. One assistant chief oversees the patrol division, another one investigations and the third chief runs jail and support services. There are commanders under each assistant chief.

Pat Lowery will replace Painter as assistant chief in charge of investigations. Lowery will continue to work as the public information officer as well.

“We have outstanding personnel here ready to step up to the challenge and take over and start or continue their legacies behind the others,” Thomas said.