Corporal Craig Fowler: One of Perry Police Department’s finest

The Perry Police Department received its fourth recertification assessment from the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police. It is a certification that upholds a department by 126 standards. Perry Police Chief Steve Lynn said that less than 20 percent of the 628 agencies in Georgia are state certified.

Lynn said one officer who makes it all happen is Cpl. Craig Fowler, Perry Police Department’s state certification manager. Fowler began as a patrol officer in 2004 with department and has worked his way up to having more than one role.

“I became the state certification manager in 2012 in the community services trained division working under Capt. James Buck,” said Fowler. “Basically, what I do is handle neighborhood watch, crime prevention, state certification, I’m in charge of the fleet of the department, court bailiff, school crossing, and any other duties assigned by the chief.

“I am also bilingual. I am fluent in Spanish. Before this role I was a patrol officer, and in 2005 I was appointed as the school resource officer at Perry Middle, and following year I was also the school resource officer for Mossy Creek Middle. I taught GREAT (gang resistance education and training) at the elementary schools for a short time as well.”

Fowler said the late former Perry Police Chief George Potter assigned him as the state certification manager.

“There are eight chapters that we follow that deals with everything from the organization of our department to legal problems to the jail facility (which we don’t have anymore),” said Fowler. “It holds our department to high standard accountability. It makes sure that the public knows we are transparent at any given time. They can come in and see how we run our department and why we meet and how meet these standards.”

By 2017, the fleet of Perry Police will be all in one accord. Fowler said in 2015 the department started with six SUV police interceptor utility vehicles. This year they have added six more, and within the next couple of months will add seven more.

“We did a test run with the 2013 SUV and the public response was great, very well accepted,” said Fowler. “The standardized color is silver with our blue and red striping. I’m also in charge of outfitting the whole vehicle. Roughly, the base model runs $30,000 to $33,000, and we outfit them with an MDT (mobile data terminal), basically a laptop in a car, digital camera system, lighting, and the sirens. After adding all that, the costs come to $50,000 per vehicle, which is standard across agencies.

“We try to stay up to date because that is our officers’ office. Recently we have added a new safety feature for the K9 vehicles, BLISS. It’s a device that detects another vehicle from the blind spot. Our goal this year is to put it on all the vehicles.”

Lynn describes Fowler as one of his valuable officers.

“He comes in every day with a positive attitude,” said Lynn. “He does get pulled in a lot of different directions because his job is in support of every other person in this police department both civilian and sworn in. There are a lot of demands, and addition to those demands is the state certification, which is really important because we just got recertified for the fourth time. That’s on a three-year cycle. As the state manager, he is responsible for maintaining those files, all 126 standards. In that support unit it’s very small and it falls mostly to him and Capt. Buck with school resource officers, computers, equipment, training, and maintaining publications (for example our facts about drug abuse booklet.)

“We couldn’t operate without Cpl. Fowler. Even with being pulled in all these different directions you never see him out of sorts. He does a great job.”

Fowler said he’s never been one who looks for attention, and rank is not a big goal of his.

“I enjoy what I do. I enjoy helping other officers,” said Fowler. “I couldn’t do this job without the support from our command staff. Our department is one of the best. In fact, word is Perry is the envy of other departments around the state.

“We are a community oriented policing department. With that, our community is very supportive of us. I am very grateful, love my job, and love my city, Perry.”

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