The Standard sat down with Dover’s new Police Chief, Scott Bickford, last week. We talked with him about his connection to Dover and his plans for the future. He has lived in Dover since 1999. He has four grown children, Austin, Tucker, Connor and Kaylee. He is currently married to Leslie Bickford and has been for 14 years next month. He had to text her to make sure. Bickford said he is originally from Wisconsin and graduated high school there. He followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the military. He has a framed American flag hanging in his office. His father flew the flag on his army boat in the Vietnam war. It is tattered and has bullet holes. Bickford said, “He served in Vietnam, and he brought that flag back. He had that flag and it was flown in his house for a little while. Over there during the war, when he ran his boat up and down the river, that was the one on the back, and that’s where these bullet holes came in.” Bickford joined the military, served six years, three of those with the Military Police. He was stationed at Fort Campbell. He said, “I moved here in 1999 and accepted a job with the Dover Police Dept. where I was a Sergeant and a K9 Officer.” Bickford has more than 25 years in law enforcement. He said in 2005, he went to the Stewart Co. Sheriff’s office, worked under John Vinson and ended up in a supervisor role until 2018. There was an opening with the Dover City Police Dept. and he has been there ever since. He said, when asked about the decision, he just wanted to come back to Dover, work in a small community. “You know, you make your shift. You make your day what it is. Because, even though it’s Stewart County, it’s still a lot more ground to cover. You know, you can be all the way out on Tobacco Port, and now all of a sudden you’ve got a call in Brownsfield. It was just constant all day long. I mean, they put a lot of miles on their cars over there.” He also served as interim Police Chief twice and has completed several trainings. Bickford added, “I have been under four chiefs since I have worked for the Dover Police Department. Ray Brewer, David Barnes, Kim Wallace and Dennis Honholt. Each one of them provided me with different training, knowledge and ways of looking at policing. I have tried to take a little from each of them and implement all of what I have learned and build upon their ideas and past practices. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be here or the officer I am today without the leadership that has come before me.”
As far as the future of the Dover Police Department, Bickford said there won’t be many changes anytime soon. He said he does want to continue to build the relationship between police and the community. He had a list of bullet points ready, stating, Come up with ideas to get more involved within the community. Officers becoming involved in special events, demonstrations, show and tells and possibly work side by side with the library, school system and children for events they may be having. Continue to build upon what previous management has started within the department. One of the things Bickford said he wanted to fix was working with other agencies. He said, “I wanted to repair the relationship between the police dept. and the sheriff’s office, so we are all working on a common goal for our community and its’ citizens. The citizens benefit more when all surrounding agencies are working together and on the same page of music. Sheriff Gray was very welcoming and open to ideas of us working/training together again.” He also mentioned working on the Town of Dover helping with funding for the FLOCK camera system. Cumberland City is already working with the program. He added, “I want to continue cross training the police with the fire department so we can assist them any way we can if they become short handed on a fire scene. Like police, know how to do some of the fire stuff. I’m not saying the police can get out here and take a truck and know exactly what to do. Just police showing up to run a fire truck. But they can help. Our goal is to have enough training to where if we show up on a scene, there’s firemen still coming. We at least have the basic knowledge of, while they’re trying to hook up a line, hey, give me pressure on this hose. Turn this on. You know, we know what they’re talking about, how to turn the pressure on, how to get the water started, and most police don’t. Until more fire people start showing up, then we can back off and start doing the traffic, start doing the whatever.
Fire Captain Crockarell is doing an outstanding job reaching out to outside agencies/companies, to ask how they can provide assistance to our department.” He was talking about Fire Captain Jonathan Crockarell, who recently completed training at the Police Academy so he could be certified as an officer. Bickford said, “Jonathan is a whole different thing since he went to the Police Academy. He is basically cross-trained. His main priority is fire, because he’s the Fire Captain. But when, as we know, fire, thank God, you’re not 24-7. There’s a lot of downtime, and that’s why he went to the academy. He is paid for that position, but when you’re down there, oftentimes you’re caught up. There’s nothing to do. So, are you going to sit in your office and do nothing? Or do we send you to the academy? Where, during your off time, you can go out and patrol as an extra officer out here on the street or to help fill in with schedules or, you know. I mean, it totally makes sense. But he’s doing a fantastic job downstairs. He’s got to make sure that they’ve got the equipment certified, and all that. That’s his first priority. He’s got good manpower underneath him that takes care of stuff, Vic Ward, Don Tate, Frank Hanna, all these people, they’re all reserve officers too with us. They’ve been through the reserve program. So those are our three reserves right now.” He said he is going to keep the reserve program going as well. “I like the fact that it doubles up officers in cars. There’s a backup officer there for you. They also help out and are a big role in special events, Eagle Fest, fishing tournaments. They help out with that, and it cuts down on the Christmas parade. It cuts down, because years and years ago, before we even really had all these reserves, it was every officer comes in, even if they’re working eight days straight, and Eagle Fest was three or four days back in the day. Every one of them would be down there at Eagle Fest all day long, all night long. Now the reserves help offset that. They help with the parking. They helped at Eagle Fest this year…