Meet Police Chief Jake Fowler of Fyffe, Alabama - This is Not Mayberry

Not used to giving face to face interviews (my usual method is via email) and not used to being interviewed Chief of Police in Fyffe, Alabama, Jake Fowler and I were quite the awkward pair sitting in his office on the second floor of the Fyffe Municipal Complex early last Monday evening. His keys were placed strategically in the door in case he needed to make a quick Batman-type exit, paperwork and remnants of a late lunch was scattered across his desk, and on the wall was a framed piece of art featuring none other then the theme of Fyffe High School Red Devil Football which shows him to be a home town boy through and through.

Despite his grizzly appearance (which made me squirm) and despite his general lack of media attention (which made him squirm), after a few minutes we settled in comfortably to discuss his job, his outlook on things, and what it was that made the Fyffe Police Department tick.

Meet Jake Fowler, Police Chief of Fyffe, who has led up our law enforcement for almost five years now. Since he was little, he dreamed of being a police officer. "A lot of my dad's friends were police officers and growing up, the police officers here and in some other towns that I met were a big influence on me," Fowler stated. As he got older however, he never really looked at it as a real career opportunity until he was in his early twenties and lucked into a job at the county sheriff's department as a jailor. While he enjoyed his work there, he wanted something more. In another twist of luck, he was given a dispatcher's job in Rainsville which led to him being given a job as a police officer on the road. He graduated from the police academy during that time. He was a police officer for Rainsville for a few years, then worked as a School Resource Officer for the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office before the program was cut, and then he worked as a Guntersville police officer. He had been in Guntersville for almost a year when the then police chief of Fyffe called him up and told him he had an opening for Assistant Chief. He jumped at the chance. Not only was driving back and forth to Guntersville everyday taking its toll, but to be able to come back to your home town was something that was very appealing to him. It wasn't long after when Fowler took over as police chief.

Since he has taken over the department, he has been able to upgrade much of the equipment the police officers use, he has been able to put more officers on the road, updated a lot of policies and procedures, he has been able to give competitive pay raises, all with the help and support of the current and previous mayoral administration. Fowler says support from the administration has been so smooth and that makes it easier on everyone. Fowler says they are also a lot pickier about who they give a police officer's job to. "Before it's always been kind of a rush, just a warm body to work and we've gotten a little pickier about that, which has been inconvenient short term but which has worked out much better for us long term. We've got a good group of officers here now," Fowler says proudly of his department. "We've got some guys now that have a genuine interest in taking care of the community. They've done over and above what's expected of them."

In terms of crime statistics, Fowler says that there is more that goes on in Fyffe then most people realize. "I can tell you that 90% of our arrests in one way or another can be related back to the meth problem in DeKalb County. Whether it be a domestic violence... possession... manufacturing... theft of property... reckless driving... better then 90% of that goes back to illicit drugs." Because of everything he's had to deal with in his job, he hates meth with a passion. "Meth is the absolute devil. It is pure evil," he says, but despite how much he wants meth gone, he still doesn't want to intrude on other people's rights to try to fight the problem. To do so would defeat the purpose of the oath to protect and serve. The only way to really combat the meth problem is for people to step forward and talk about it. He understands how people can be scared but he wishes people could understand that as bad as that problem is, they cannot take care of the problem without help from the community.

When asked how his profession has affected his personal life, he admitted that the job has made him more weary around people. "I have come to the unfortunate realization doing this job that you never really know anybody. People that you thought you knew all your life, can turn into somebody else in an instant." He's a lot more cautious now and a lot more skeptical about people then he was before he took the job. It's a sad revelation but one that doesn't necessarily shake his faith. When people only want to talk to him to complain or only when they have an issue, he acknowledges that it has made him less friendly. "It is really hard some days to police, much less, to run a police department in your home town. You think that it would be easy cause you know everybody but at the same time it's not easy cause you know every body.... sometimes it gets hard for me to get some folks that have known me since I was in diapers to separate that little fat Fowler boy from the chief of police that has a job to do. But I wouldn't trade it."

He says that he is very thankful for the guys he has working for him, he's very thankful for the community for the support they've given him and the department, and he's also very thankful for both administrations that he has worked under.

It was truly a pleasure speaking with Chief Fowler and I thank him for taking time out of his schedule to speak with me. Unfortunately, he didn't want to pose holding his gun up in Lethal Weapon fashion so I settled on the standard "tough as nails" look with a promise that I wouldn't capture a picture of his messy desk.

Speaking of tough as nails, you have to be tough when you have three teenagers. "So which is easier, parenting or this job?" I asked.

He laughed. "It depends on which day you catch me on."