Duluth police chief to take Wichita post

Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsay is leaving to head up the police department in Wichita, Kansas.

Ramsay, a Duluth native, has led the city's police department for nearly 10 years. In Wichita he'll supervise a staff of 830 and a budget of $82 million. Duluth has about 200 officers and a budget of around $25 million. His new job will pay him $170,000 a year.

In announcing his appointment, Wichita officials noted Ramsay's commitment to community policing and his work implementing a body camera policy.

Ramsay said police sometimes focus too much on enforcement and not enough on being peacekeepers and community resources.

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"Police need to take the time to get to know people other than when there's a crisis," he said. "Because if you don't have that relationship foundation when something bad happens, it's going to spin out of control."

Duluth's was the first major department in Minnesota to adopt body cams, Ramsay said. The policy was implemented after a squad car camera captured an officer-involved shooting of a 17-year-old carrying a baseball bat in 2010.

"Because that was so powerful and so helpful for citizens to see what exactly happened, we started testing body cameras almost right after that," Ramsay said.

Ramsay begins in Wichita Jan. 28. He said he'll continue working in Duluth through most of next month.