CHIEF BRENT BLANKLEY first fell in love with law enforcement while on a ride-along in his junior year of college. After becoming an officer, he quickly rose through the ranks of the Tuscaloosa Police Department (TPD), spending much of his career in areas that emphasized community interaction and outreach. After just 14 years of service, he was promoted to be Tuscaloosa’s ninth police chief. Once motivated by arrests and day-to-day community interactions, Chief Blankley has shifted his focus to loftier goals like improving the mental and physical well-being of his officers while more effectively providing police services to the Tuscaloosa community.

During his career, Chief Blankley served as co-director of the citizen police academy, and he coordinated criminal justice student internships and was the Crime Stoppers coordinator. He modernized TPD’s social media presence, improving TPD’s outreach as the public information officer, and he was instrumental in calming community tensions after an in-custody death during a time of national civil unrest in 2015.

Since becoming Tuscaloosa’s chief, he has improved officer morale, upgraded the department’s technology, and improved and expanded the department’s taser program to include all sworn uniformed officers. He also implemented several proactive units and programs within the department such as a proactive street crimes unit and founded the extremely successful Mental Health Officer program, creating a full-time position to address the change in modern policing needs, train additional officers in crisis intervention, and deliver properly trained personnel to those in the community experiencing emotional distress.

“In today’s society, when being a police officer is hard and unpopular and our officers still enjoy coming to work… that motivates me more than any arrest ever could.”