Rhamy celebrates 10 years as chief

Red Oak Police Chief Justin Rhamy celebrated a major milestone this month.
At the regular Red Oak City Council meeting on April 20, Rhamy was recognized for his decade of service as the police chief for the Red Oak Police Department. While 10 years is a long tenure, Rhamy said his experience in law enforcement began much earlier than that.
“I started out with the Red Oak Police Department in 2005 and until 2009 I was a patrol officer with them. Then I transitioned to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office for four years and in February, 2013 I came back to the Red Oak Police Department as a Sergeant, where I served for several years until Drue Powers announced his retirement as chief in 2015. I was essentially appointed as interim chief after Powers left before being officially appointed in 2016,” Rhamy said.
While he enjoyed his time as a deputy, Rhamy said he moved back to the police department because of the opportunity for career advancement and a move to a supervisory role, though he had no idea at the time how far he was going to advance. 
“Becoming Red Oak’s chief was not in my head when I made that transition. I was looking for advancement into the sergeant role, and of course at that point in time I think it paid a little bit more money too, so that’s what my thought process was at that time,” commented Rhamy.
It was during his time serving as the night sergeant that the prospect of being the chief was brought to him.
“A few people approached me and said, ‘I think you’d be good at it,’ ‘I think you need to put your application in for it,’ and I ended up listening to them, and now here we are, 10 years later,” stated Rhamy.
While 10 years doesn’t seem like a long time, Rhamy said the landscape of policing has drastically changed from when he first took on the role as chief.
“You had the Michael Brown situation in St. Louis, where he was unfortunately killed by officers, and then the George Floyd situation in Minneapolis. There’s been several in between there that kind of turned the negative light on law enforcement and really made law enforcement in general the bad guy, whether we were or not,” advised Rhamy. “There was judgment that people cast right off the bat without knowing any facts, and it doesn’t matter whether it was in regards to this case, I dealt with the same situation here in people making a judgmental decision on a serious accident we had here in town, that they automatically jumped to the conclusion it was a pursuit when it had nothing to do with a pursuit.”
While sometimes the national response to policing is negative, Rhamy said here in Red Oak, there’s a different response.
“We’re extremely fortunate here in the Midwest. Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and the Dakotas, they are highly pro-law enforcement. So we’re very fortunate in that case where we have that backing from those people. Of course, it always helps to have the PR events such as National Night Out and being able to get people comfortable with an interaction level with us no matter what it may be makes things that much easier when it comes time to them having to deal with an unfortunate situation where we may be involved. It does play a part and it helps for sure.”
Of the calls he takes, Rhamy said the ones that stick with him the most are those that involve situations with children.
“You hope for a good majority of the situations that it turns out in a positive light. Anything you have to do that deals with kids, it just makes it that much more difficult. Overall, we’ve had a lot of dealings with kids that have turned out great,” advised Rhamy.
One of the toughest times of his experience as chief was having to work policing around the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It put some fear into my officers and the people that work around the law enforcement center, and it’s hard to do our job without having contact with people. Having that six foot or more space in between you is extremely difficult when somebody gets into any type of a situation whether it be an incident involving a domestic, to assault, to theft, to somebody being burglarized their home. If we had to go answer a call, that really freaked some of those people out and made it difficult because they were not wanting to cooperate. It was an extremely difficult time, but thankfully we made it through,” said Rhamy.
In addition to the policing issues, Rhamy said it also put a bit of a strain on funding. 
“It definitely put a dent in a lot of departments’ budgets because we had to buy a lot of stuff, just the safety side of it, to keep our officers safe and keep the public safe as well. Then as supplies dwindled things got more expensive which didn’t help. I’m very hopeful we’ll never have to go through something like that again,” explained Rhamy.
Rhamy commented on what he’s most enjoyed about his law enforcement career, as chief and beyond.
It’s all about the people, whether it be here in the office or the public itself. I really enjoy getting out to converse with them. That’s the rewarding part about it, especially when you know you’ve been out there and you’ve done what you can to help somebody. Not always do we see the positive side of what happens in the transactions, but being in this position, I probably have the best opportunity to hear about them a lot more than my patrol guys. They may not see them, and I can tell you from when I was on the streets, I probably didn’t see them, but sitting in my spot, being the chief, you get a lot more of the thank yous and appreciation, so that’s pretty cool to watch and see. It’s the same for the sheriff and the EMS. You get yourself into a call, you help people, and they want to show their appreciation, and they usually start with us chiefs or the sheriffs and then we pass it on down.”
Rhamy said he also appreciates the opportunity to serve in a well funded emergency capacity with the support of the public and city.
“It’s always good to have the public’s support and the public’s trust as well as that of the city council and the city administrator and those officials above us that also make things happen for us,” Rhamy commented.
Now that he has 10 years in the books, Rhamy speculated on what the next 10 years will bring.
“I’m a ways away from being able to retire and while there’s nothing set in stone as far as the future, am I going anywhere? No. There’s always going to be a need for law enforcement and I plan on sticking around here for a number of years to come. As far as the department, we’re going to carry on and strive and push to make our department better. Everything has hurdles you’ve got to jump through, from working with the public to working in our office, so there’s just a continuous push forward to make us the best we can be.”