Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key hears from interim police chief

The Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key got a visit from the police at its July 1 meeting, but no one was on the lam — it was a friendly visit. Interim Longboat Key police chief George Turner attended the meeting as a speaker to introduce himself to the community members and explain his goals for the department. 

Longtime Longboaters might recognize Turner from his stint as a police officer and later, a captain, in the early 2000s. He’d been coming to the area since the 1980s, but took a job as an officer on the island when he retired from as a police chief in Ulster, N.Y. in 2000. Turner is a career law enforcement officer, having started in New York in 1976. He’s been retired a couple of times, but wanted to keep doing police work. He applied for the Longboat Key police chief job last fall, but didn’t get it after making it to the finals. Turner is back now on an interim basis and ready to get to work. 

“There's no real ending date to this at this time,” Turner said. “I have no idea whether I’ll be here for six months or six years.” 

Turner’s big goal is to get the department accredited in the eyes of the state. It’s about a two-year process and will involve community feedback in about 20 months, he said. Turner helped his former department in Brooksville, become accredited during his stint as chief there from 2007 to 2018. 

“Our policy procedures are right now, as we speak, being updated,” Turner said. “We're not going to reinvent the wheel, we're going to do what everybody else in the state does. We take policy procedures from other accredited law enforcement agencies that have proven records of success, and we're going to implement them here. We are not going to hire people with any kind of blemishes on their record, and we are going to hold everyone accountable.”

The process starts with training, and Longboat Key officers will be sent to emergency vehicle operations training next month. Turner is also dedicated to hiring only officers with experience and education who know what kind of community they’re coming to. 

“Our job out here is a lot of non-traditional law enforcement functions,” Turner said. “We’re very, very community supported. We do a lot of things that a lot of big city police departments do not do. We're here for anything, really any citizen input or inquiry, the police department is here for you.”

Turner fielded questions from the group, including queries about the boats that swarm the north end of the Key on hot days and weekends. The department has two boats that Turner said they run on high volume days, doing their best to be as visible as possible. 

“It's all for safety and boater safety, and the enjoyment of everybody out there … and we try to be reasonable,” Turner said. “If there is a noise complaint, we go and we tell the violator, ‘Please turn it down,’ 100% of the time they turn it down.”

Turner also answered questions about what can be done to make crossing Gulf of Mexico Drive safer and how he will bring in the best candidates for the department. 

“I'm not looking for any personnel, but for training and accreditation, and making sure our equipment is up to standard, so that we can provide a high level of service that we've always done in the past and plan to do in the future,” Turner said.