Police Chief Outlines Plans for Department

Future plans for the Grove Police Department include the addition of four new officers to keep up with increased calls for service, now up 10-15% a year, a new physical fitness incentive program for officers, increased traffic and handicap parking enforcement, and purchase of Taser equipment.

Chief Ivan Devitt III spoke to members of the Grove Rotary Club Wednesday about his future requests to City Council and said calls for service averaged 1290 per month in 2004 and have increased to 1895 a month in 2007.

Devitt served 16 years on the Houston police force; his last assignment was on the Mounted Patrol, where he worked the 2004 Super Bowl and the Enron collapse. He moved to Grove to be near relatives in 2005 and was named Acting Police Chief in May 2006.

"We have a very professional, hard working group of officers in Grove," he said. Recent changes include a new training facility at the pistol range, increasing the DARE program activity using a canine officer for drug searches in the schools, moving the courtroom to City Hall, renovating space in the years-old police department building, installing new carpet, lighting and soon to come, new floor tile. "The jail cells remain as before," he added. The facilities had gone basically untouched for 20 years, he told the group. The department recently purchased a radar trailer that is in heavy use around the city.

Devitt is most proud of the new animal control section's "Pet of the Day" program, where animals are featured in the Grove Sun Daily and on KGVE to be adopted out, rather than euthanized.
"We get three to four animals adopted a week now, going to nice homes."

The department currently has 19 full time officers, eight dispatchers, and two animal control officers. Officers work four 10-hour shifts a week to cover the department 24 hours a day, seven days a week.