CONWAY — Bart Castleberry’s first official act Jan. 1 as Conway’s new mayor was to take the word interim off Police Chief Jody Spradlin’s title.
Spradlin, 48, was appointed as the interim chief in Nov. 1, 2015, by former Mayor Tab Townsell when former Chief A.J. Gary left to become director of security and compliance for the Arkansas State Lottery. Gary, who lives in the Vilonia area, became director July 1 of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
Spradlin said it was good to have the backing of the new mayor.
“A little bit after the election, [Castleberry] talked to me and told me he was happy with what I was doing and wanted to get that out of the way,” Spradlin said. “Especially with me having interim status, people in the [Conway] Police Department were wondering, ‘Is he going to go outside the department, do a national search?’ I think it was a relief to a lot of people in the department.”
Castleberry said it wasn’t a hard decision.
“I’m big on promoting within when you have people within your department that are capable of doing the job,” Castleberry said. “I never considered opening it up to the outside.”
Spradlin oversees 123 officers in the department. The 2017 budget is $11.3 million, which includes salaries and benefits, he said.
The chief said his salary — $87,000 “and some change” — will remain the same.
“When Townsell appointed me interim, basically his words were, ‘You’re doing the job; you get the pay,’” Spradlin said.
He said one of his main goals this year will be to equip officers with body cameras.
“We’ve got a few projects that we’re looking at right now; one of our biggest is our body-worn cameras. It comes with a great expense,” he said.
Spradlin said the features on the cameras and their cost vary greatly, depending on the company.
“We’re in the process right now — we’re probably on our third or fourth company — they’ve given us cameras, and we’re using them a month to six weeks to see how we like them,” he said.
He said the ease of viewing the video footage is being considered, as well as cost and other factors, to see how “to get our best bang for our buck.”
The cost could be from $200,000 to $400,000, he said.
“Storage space is the biggest issue with body cams because you get all this footage — you have to put it somewhere,” he said. “We have to develop a policy; how long are we going to retain the videos?”
He said footage from the cameras being tested is being stored on a server.
Redaction software is a must, too, he said.
“If I’m a police officer and I go to your house on a call — if you have minor children, it’s recording them,” he said.
The videos, unless they are part of an ongoing investigation, are public record. Anyone could come ask to see the footage.
“The contents of your house, your minor children — do you want that on YouTube? There’s privacy issues. … We have to have redaction software so we can blur images … like images of minors.”
Spradlin said his plan is to have body cameras in place this year.
“We started looking at body cams late last year,” he said. “Ideally, we would have a plan in place moving toward that this year.”
He said officers have video cameras with audio in their vehicles, and officers have been exonerated from complaints based on video footage. For example, someone who is arrested might falsely claim the officer was rude or cursed, but the video footage shows “it didn’t happen.” Spradlin said officers realize body cameras are important for transparency as well.
Since he has been interim chief, Spradlin said, the department has achieved a goal of starting a Central Arkansas Police Academy, a 16-week officer training that was held at the Conway Police Department in conjunction with the North Little Rock Police Department.
“That was something that was new to us, and we actually did two academies last year. That was a large undertaking on our part,” Spradlin said.
The impetus was that officers previously had to go to the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy in Camden to be trained, which is a 2 1/2-hour drive, Spradlin said. Also, the Camden training academy “is getting overwhelmed with officers.”
He said some classes in Camden had 100 officers to one instructor. In Conway, the first academy had 22 officers; the second had nine, Spradlin said.
That enabled officers to get “lots more hands-on training,” he said.
Conway will no longer hold the academies, Spradlin said. Conway coordinated with the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training from the beginning, he said. The commission responded to the need for a class in central Arkansas, and beginning in February, a police academy will be held at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock.
“We’ll actually provide some of our instructors from the Police Department, and we’ll send our officers there,” Spradlin said.
Spradlin has been a member of the Conway Police Department since 1991. He graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in 1990 and worked as a hotel clerk for several months before deciding to take necessary steps to become a police officer.
He has an uncle who was in law enforcement, serving as a sheriff’s deputy, for almost 30 years. Spradlin’s older brother, Greg, is chief of the University Park Police Department in Texas.
Spradlin became a narcotics officer in 1994, which he said was “one of the most exciting parts of this job I’ve ever had.”
In an interview with the River Valley & Ozark Edition in 2016, Spradlin said his original goal did not include becoming chief.
“I told A.J., ‘You’re the one who pushed me because you knew I could be better than I thought I was,’” Spradlin said.
Gary said last week that he thinks highly of Spradlin and applauds Castleberry for naming Spradlin to the position.
“I think it’s a great decision; I was very pleased to see that. I think Chief Spradlin will do an outstanding job for the citizens of Conway,” Gary said.
Spradlin and his wife, Neva, have three children: Nathan, 19; Kayla, 16; and Adam, 14.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.