It isn’t easy starting a police department from the ground up. Just ask Alan Cockrill, Batesville’s first police chief in more than 30 years, who said he has been swinging on the emotional scale from excited to nervous to overwhelmed, then back to excited since he was hired a month ago. Despite the long to-do list and the countless number of steps to creating a police department, the planning will all be worth it once those patrol cars hit the streets.
“On the first day that people roll out of bed and see a bunch of black-and-white police cars for the first time on the streets of Batesville, it’s going to be great,” Cockrill said. “I’m going to be almost as proud as I am being a grandpa.”
Batesville has not had its own police force since 1981. In the past 34 years, the Independence County Sheriff’s Department has provided law enforcement in the city, and it has paid $1.2 million annually for the service. On Dec. 17, the Batesville City Council voted to withdraw from this interlocal agreement, starting a six-month process to form the city’s own police department.
Of course, a police department needs a police chief, and Cockrill was hired Jan. 12 to fill that position. Born and raised in Batesville, Cockrill has had a 29-year career in law enforcement, and he said he is excited to get the new Batesville department started.
“It’s a challenge,” he said.
The department just signed a lease on a building at the corner of South Central Avenue and West Boswell Street, but until then, Cockrill has set up shop in a borrowed office in T. Lindsey Castleberry’s Belew and Bell Law Office in the Batesville Municipal Building. It is a temporary location Cockrill said he is thankful for, and it almost feels like a long-term office with the few decorations scattered around the room. A bookshelf displays several mementos of Cockrill’s various jobs in law enforcement, and a photo of his father and former President Bill Clinton sits on his desk, reminding Cockrill of his father’s influence in his life.
Cockrill’s father — Ray Miller Cockrill — expertly balanced his passion for his work with his focus on family time. He was a hospital administrator, eventually helping to start White River Rural Health Center in Augusta to provide health care for people in the Arkansas Delta.
“He was proud of the accomplishments he made,” Cockrill said of his father. “He spent a lot of time with his children. We hunted and fished, but he very seldom forgot about work.”
Cockrill may have gleaned his desire to help people from watching his father work to make sure rural Arkansans had access to health care. Although Cockrill did not pursue a career in health care, he did work for Vital Link EMS after attending Arkansas College (now Lyon College) in Batesville for two years. When he turned 21, he made the transition to law enforcement, starting at the Independence County Sheriff’s Department.
“I wanted to help people,” he said. “I know that sounds corny. I started at the ambulance service, went to law enforcement, was on at the Batesville Fire Department for 11 or 12 years, and I just have a strong desire to help people. Although law enforcement is often not looked at as a helping agency, I still think that’s where we need to be. Our job is still to protect and serve, but I think if we see someone on the side of the road with a flat tire or out of gas, we should stop to help instead of just waving as we drive by.”
Cockrill served in the sheriff’s department from February 1986 until April 1988, when he was hired by the Arkansas State Police. He was assigned in Perryville for 2 1/2 years, then was transferred to Newport for 2 1/2 years. That was the only time he has not lived in Batesville, and he said that after those five years, he was ready to move back home.
“Writing tickets and working accidents just was really not what I had pictured as my law enforcement career,” he said. “I decided I wanted to try something else.”
After his five years with the state police, Cockrill got an opportunity to work on the 16th Judicial District Drug Task Force, working narcotics across five counties. He worked in that division from May 1993 to January 1999, and he said it was not easy work.
“I’ve got some really good friends — who are still really good friends — that I sent to the penitentiary,” he said. “Narcotics just got the best of them.”
Between his time with the Drug Task Force and his latest position as chief of police, Cockrill worked in the Independence County Sheriff’s Department for a second time.
Cockrill said he has been supportive of Batesville forming its own police department for a while, and as soon as he knew it was happening, he knew he wanted to be the chief.
“With the growth of the county, with the call volume in the city, with the number of personnel distributed, we need more people on the streets in town,” he said. “All our interlocal agreement said was that the sheriff would provide two [men in town]. He’s doing what’s in the contract, but the city felt like we could put more guys out on the street for higher visibility.”
That higher visibility is important to Cockrill. He described visions of police vehicles flooding the streets, making their presence known and helping drive down the crime rate in the city. Between now and June — when the department must be operational — he plans to hire 25 to 27 people to staff the department. The applications have already started coming in, Cockrill said, and even before the city had a chance to advertise the positions, he had 16 applications sitting on his desk.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he said. “We’ve created a Facebook page for the Batesville Police Department. There are a lot of people asking how they can get involved, how they can apply. We’re certainly looking for certified applicants, but we’ve also got an open mind. There will be an interview panel so everyone has a fair shot.”
Like with any department that is just starting out, Cockrill said, he will hire the first batch of employees, then slowly increase the size of the department over time. He said the force will have a large number of patrolmen and a narcotics department, but the criminal-investigations unit may be small to start out with.
“We’re going to put most of them in uniform and on the streets,” he said. “High visibility deters crime.”
The city had to give the county a six-month notice before completely separating from the interlocal agreement, so Cockrill has until the end of June to have the department up and running. He said that ideally, he would like the department to be operational by the middle or the end of May, but that depends on a lot of factors that are out of his hands.
“If everything falls in place, that’s a feasible goal,” he said. “But we’re depending on the federal government to issue us our radio frequencies, getting a completely new computer system through our law enforcement reporting system, getting the building ready. Everything’s going to have to go just right to be there and be fully prepared.”
Right now, Cockrill’s days are filled with to-do lists, paperwork and planning in order to get the department operational as soon as possible. He said he starts each day by prioritizing his short-term goals, and at the end of the day he looks back and sometimes cannot figure out where the time went.
“At the end of the day you look back and think, ‘I got everything done on my list, but what did I really get accomplished?’” he said. “That’s a little different.”
Cockrill said that through this process, he is thankful for a supportive family. His wife continues to encourage him, his children do the same, and his grandchild — soon to be grandchildren — is the apple of his eye.
“My son’s son, Ray Thomas, was born Nov. 4, and my daughter’s baby is due at the end of April. His name is going to be Wyatt,” Cockrill said. “Of course, I already bought them both guns.”
With a police chief as their grandfather, Ray Thomas and Wyatt will hopefully grow up knowing that police are their friends who want a safe community. Cockrill said that is his hope for the department, and he wants the people of Batesville to know that is his priority.
“Yes, we have to chase the bad guys, and we have to arrest people,” he said. “But ultimately, our goal is to help everybody we can.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.