KENMORE, N.Y. - Leadership at the Village of Kenmore Police Department is changing hands.
Earlier this month Chief Peter Breitnauer was arrested and charged with possession of hydrocodone. Authorities say that Breitnauer was taking prescription pills from the NYS Medication Drop Box at the station. Breitnauer admitted to police he was addicted to hydrocodone and had been taking the pills for his personal use.
On October 16, Captain Thomas Phillips was sworn in as the new Chief. 2 On Your Side's Leanne Stuck spoke with with him Friday afternoon:
Q- "Tell us a little bit about your career."
A- "Well I started working for the Kenmore Police Department as a police officer in 1999. I became a Lieutenant Patrol Supervisor in 2007 and in 2013 I became a Captain and I was a commander of the road patrol until this point."
Q- 'What can the people of Kenmore expect under your leadership?"
A- "Well I'm proud to say even during this sudden transition in leadership for our department that it's not an easy thing to deal with of course but we have a whole staff of hardworking people that have been focused on doing their job and services to the community have not been disrupted in any way.'
Q- "What is the morale like at the station since finding out about what happened with the former chief?"
A- "Morale is good I think we're getting to the point now where we're just trying to move forward and that's my job as the chief to make sure that we move forward as a department and keep providing the excellent services that the residents and business people and our community are accustomed to and we're going to keep doing that."
Q- What are you going to do as Chief to ensure something like this doesn't happen again?
A- Well for this incident we changed our protocols and without specifics on the policies I could tell you that our current protocols conform to New York State department of health guidelines for the handling and destruction of medication"
Phillips says those new protocols and policies will be announced at the next board meeting on November 6.