Thomas E. Bennett
Thomas Bennett served as Chief of Police from June 1, 2009 until he retired on August 1, 2020.
At the time of Chief
Bennett’s retirement, the Suffolk Police Department was composed of 200 sworn
members and 66 civilian members.
Under Chief Bennett’s
guidance, the police department focused on three main objectives: Accreditation, Capital Programs, and
Equipment upgrades. The department
doubled the size of Headquarters with an addition. A state of the art 911 Center was built. In addition, several four-bay equipment
storage facilities were built. The police
department and 911 center were both accredited by CALEA. The forensics unit was accredited by
ANSI. A significant amount of new equipment
was purchased and provided for departmental members use. This equipment included a Mobile Command bus,
mobile Investigations/Forensics truck, a 32’ safe boat and additional smaller
boats, jet skis, drones, ATVs, two new vehicle roll-outs (Taurus, Police
SUV/Explorer), new Glock pistols, go-bags and body cameras.
Chief Bennett led
several re-organizations of the department which resulted in adding an
Investigations Command and a new Major.
A staffing study conducted in 2019 resulted in the addition of 11 sworn
and civilian positions. Multiple new
specialized teams were added to the department during Chief Bennett’s
tenure. These include a Drone team,
Marine team, Search and Rescue team, and a second Gang unit. The last several years of Chief Bennett’s
command focused on upgrading Field technologies. Body and in-car cameras were upgraded. Signal Sidearm was installed on holsters. Interview room technology was upgraded. Axon vehicle triggers were installed for body
cameras.