Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noel

Good morning and welcome to East Tennessee now, a weekly public affairs program featuring

some of the people and organizations that make our community such a great place to live,

work, and raise a family.

Here's your host for East Tennessee now.

This is East Tennessee now, my name is Frank Murphy.

Today we are delighted to welcome the Chief of the Knoxville Police Department, Paul Noel,

hey Chief, welcome.

Thanks for having me up here Frank.

Yeah, KPD Chief, it sounds good.

It does.

You've been with us practically four years in June.

You'll celebrate your fourth anniversary in Knoxville coming all the way from New Orleans

Louisiana.

Tom flies for sure, it's going to be quite quick.

That's how they say it down there, right?

Absolutely not.

So tell us a little bit about your background real quick because you advanced all the way

to Chief of Detectives and you must have seen some stuff in New Orleans.

Yeah, you know, I was lucky enough to have a great career with the Noel's Police Department.

I worked down there for 25 years, worked in a wide variety of different jobs and pretty

much every job in a place I was lucky enough to do and I was five years as the Chief of

Operations, which is a really stressful job and I finished my last two years there as

a Chief of Detectives had a great career and you've seen a lot of great things.

It seems like it was the perfect preparation to be the overall Chief of the Department

because some of the things that you're bringing to the Department that are new or even some

of the things you're bringing back to the Department from its previous history before

you arrived, you know, may have some New Orleans connection.

You said, this worked before, this doesn't.

So let's talk about that.

Now recap these last four years, some of the things you've done with the districts.

What's that mean?

You reinstituted a district that didn't used to be there?

So you know, back in the day, you know, KPD had three districts.

They had Central, they had West and the head East and at some time back they consolidated

to two districts and there's a lot of reasons that they did that.

I'm sure they were good then, but three districts works for us now because we really believe

in a decentralization model.

We want officers to know the community and having a smaller area of responsibility is something

that's really important.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Okay.

And there's other new technological advances that as time moves on, we're going to talk

about, but also you can get in a lot of attention lately for staffing.

Oh, my daughter does HR for a small city in Virginia.

I said, oh, yeah, KPD's just said they're fully staffed and she said, what?

How's that possible?

You know, how hard it is to be fully staffed in at least Department?

Well, it's incredibly hard.

So we've not been fully staffed in over a decade.

So we've really challenged the team to really get up to fully staffed and really when

the mayor hired me, this was one of our priorities and it's been a lot of work for sure, but

I can't stress enough the team effort that the hard work our team put in to hire people

from all across the country and get some great people here.

Well, because that's so important and to use the word team, let's stick with that theme

for a few minutes now because you talk about hiring police officers like a football coach

talks about recruiting top talent from all over and some of the things you're doing

are literally the same as Coach Hype might do when he's trying to get a top player.

Absolutely.

So, you know, one thing that I've done across my career is look what other people are doing

in not just in policing, but in the private sector, in a college football, a huge sports

fan.

You know, so watching how, especially now in a new NIL area, how aggressive coaches need

to be.

And we did the same thing here with recruiting and not only myself, but my senior staff,

we call recruits regularly to try to get them to come here because we know they have so

many options.

I guess I was under the mistaken impression just as a civilian before I read a little bit

and studied up on this, that, you know, yeah, community hires police officers from within,

but that's not the case you're saying there's a competition going on.

You know, maybe Louisville wants this guy or Lexington or some other city and you're trying

to get him for Knoxville.

Absolutely.

We actually lost a really good recruit.

He's going to try to new guy.

It's just one of these things where, you know, there's departments all across the country

that are hiring and people get to really be very selective about what he's going to go.

So do you get to still be selective then as the chief?

So we have a waiting list now, which is really cool, right?

Come on.

Yes, it's really cool.

So, you know, before, you know, if you met the minimum qualifications, you know, come

on in, but now we're starting to be very, very selective now.

I've talked a lot of these people before we've hired them.

And I think this is going to be just a great group of men and women and I'm just so

excited to have them join a team.

I saw a clip.

I think it might have been on Instagram if you given a pep talk about what everybody wants

to be on a waiting team.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, so we're listening to them as they were talking, saying why they wanted to

come here.

And a lot of them were talking about, you know, that they came here because they want

to be a part of, you know, the best police department in the area.

And we 100%.

I'm not just saying that because I'm a chief here.

I really do believe that we're one of the best police departments in the country.

And people want to be here.

It's not just because of the great men and women that we have, but the technology, the

culture we have as an agency, we're doing amazing things.

Is this an area of the country that has some respect and love for our men in uniform,

whether they're first responders or military, etc.?

Absolutely.

People love law enforcement here and I can't hardly walk into Littins and pay for my

own cheeseburger, which is great, but it's also a little, a little frustrating as well,

you know.

Rules are rules.

Absolutely.

And people, last time I was in there, one of my chiefs, we were having lunch and, you

know, two ladies were fighting over who was going to pick up the check, but it just shows

you how much people love law enforcement here.

And that helps.

Oh, it absolutely does.

It also helps that you've reduced the crime rate or reduced the murder rate.

I don't know.

You can't take personal responsibility for it because you have a team, but some of those

statistics are really impressive.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, if you look at, you know, where we were in 2022 when I came on board, you know,

Volokrown was really high to have, you know, only 17 homicides last year.

You know, so far this year, we've not had one murder so far this year.

I know.

I'm thinking, gotta keep my fingers crossed.

We'll see what happens.

But no, like the men and women of our team are just doing, just doing so well.

They really are.

I'm just so proud of the work that they're doing.

What does it take to reduce crime in a community?

What does it take to reduce, not just the deaths, but also the violent injuries are down

too, right?

Absolutely.

So I really believe that it takes, it's a lot of things, but we have to excel at every

one of them.

And first of all, we have to have a really good patrol staff, our patrol officers need

to be on that game and need to know who the most violent criminals are.

Get out there and really, you know, keep the heat on them, but also be visible and respond

to calls fast.

Our detectives are locked in.

They know who these individuals are.

And if you commit a violent crime, you go into the jailhouse because they know who you

are and they're going to lock you up.

And how to find you?

Absolutely.

And on the community side as well, we need to bring strong relationships with the community

because our detectives don't have a crystal ball that they could gaze into and see who

did it.

They need people to come forward.

And that's where the trust comes in.

I hear the term community policing on the news and I don't really know what it means.

I mean, it's not like citizens are asked.

You know, community policing is probably one of the most misuse terms, you know, that

you'll ever find.

But to me, you know, what it means is getting out and building relationships, building

trust, building relationships that would never build, repairing old relationships, and

then problem solving, finding out what challenges people have in the community.

It's seeing what we could do as a government to help solve their problems.

Okay.

So it's a community and communication together, cooperation, all those things.

Two-way communication.

You can't communicate if it's only one way.

All right.

So you're talking about the officers on the streets.

And one of the things I saw you also mentioned is so much to cover here because we're going

to get into the technology side of it.

But just even boots on the ground or in some cases hooves on the ground, we're probably

going to get to the point where we have foot patrols downtown.

Oh, absolutely.

We building up to that now, you know, so, you know, we get out, we walk on a regular

basis now, downtown, old city, you know, the, the university area, you know, when there's

big games going on, we now also have amount of patrol as well, that's out.

And you know, I really believe that we have five horses, so we have officers on horseback.

But I know there were five.

I only saw two on the news.

Oh, we got five.

Absolutely.

You got to go check them out.

But I really believe all their names go.

Oh, you're going to kill me here, you know, I don't know if I can do all of that.

But I have to cheat and write some on my hand.

But, you know, in policing, you know, one of the things that I love about policing more

than anything is right now we're making amazing technological advances.

But at the same time, we still rely on the maintenance of policing and the same thing

that's been done for hundreds of years as officers getting out of foot, walking and

talking to people.

Does that used to be, if you were to show a kid a cartoon or a movie from, you know,

the 30s and 40s, and there's a beat cop walking down the street, the kid would be like,

Why?

Where's his car?

It doesn't make sense.

But like you said, that is a foundation of police work is being out in the community,

walking the streets.

The horses are used for crowd control or what?

You know, they can be used for crowd control, but for the most part, they're just used

for high visibility patrols.

So if you think about a police officer on market square after dark, and I'm standing,

you know, by, you know, over there by, by not watching or tomato head or something like

that, and you kind of blend in.

But I walk through market square and horseback, everyone is going to see me.

And we know that, that visible presence will create a crime deterrence that will last

much longer than they also actually be in the place.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, because if you're a bad guy and you're thinking about coming into crime, you're going

to look around and say, I mean, but he's watching.

Yeah.

And if the police are right there or you can hear a clip clop in here, they come.

And also too, you know, the officer and horseback could be seen from a much farther distance

and they could also see a long ways as well.

That's fantastic.

And it's fun too, you know, because it also then creates new positive interactions with

young people and families.

And you get over that whole idea of the police being the bad guy.

We're all terrified.

You know, when we get pulled over for speeding or something like that, but if you can break

down some of that fear, that could prevent an ugly incident later, right?

Absolutely.

Well, let's talk then.

We're talking with KPD chief Paul Noel, who has been in Knoxville now for about four

years.

There's been so many technological changes in our own personal lives over these four

years as we're talking about AI and we're talking about ring doorbells and we're talking

about every little thing that we can think of.

We all think that we're amateur detectives from watch and television.

But in reality, there's some exciting new things that are happening with stationary cameras

which are mounted overtly, I learned and then drones, but let's start with the overt

public cameras.

I mean, using the right terminology, how would you describe the cameras I'm trying to

talk about?

They definitely overt.

They're not meant to be concealed.

Do I actually have a son that says, like, you know, KPD camera, and they're not live

yet.

But the thought process is, is we want to have those cameras in some of our areas that

we've had some challenges in and this is allows us to be able to respond better if we

have an emergency or potential crime at a car.

So you guys studied the statistics over three years as to where they were the most, I

guess, incident or interaction or police activity or crime activity.

Let's say, okay.

People in this corner, that would catch some people, is that right?

That's really what it is.

That's pretty much it.

You know, the first one went up was at Chapman and Moody, which we've had a lot of, you

know, like bad accidents and some pedestrian deaths and all of stuff like that.

Obviously, you know, we're going to put some downtown.

That downtown is not an area where we've had a lot of problems with crime, but it's also

an area where we have a high concentration of people.

Yeah.

And we have something that does happen.

It's very high profile.

So we want to make sure we could be there for that.

The Knoxville is a city that loves its festivals and it's football and it loves bringing big

crowds downtown.

Yes.

This weekend is going to be packed downtown and you know, we want to make sure we're ready

for it.

They just had the fishing tournament and you got big ears and then you got every other

thing coming along with the dogwood festival and the Rossini festival, et cetera, et cetera.

So when you were hired for this job, is that something they gave you a heads up on?

Well, you know what?

What am I talking about?

You're coming from New Orleans.

Well, you know, so when I was hired for, you know, when I was hired for this job, obviously,

you know, back in New Orleans, they had a robust public camera network, you know, thousands

of cameras and everything.

Well, when I was hired here, that real-time information said it was actually already in

the works.

It was already planned.

It was still in the, you know, the genesis stage of it, but we got a kickstarter, but

that was already in motion before you even came here.

So they hired a guy who would know how to run it when it was ready and it's still in

the process.

Like you said, the cameras are being positioned.

They're all on at the same time when they're all installed.

Yeah.

Well, we need to wait for they're all installed and we're still hiring some employees.

We're still putting a policy together.

So we need to do some things on the front end and make sure we're ready for it.

We need to do some testing, everything.

Okay.

So you're still building the foundation.

We're not ready to put the roof on it yet.

That's correct.

Okay.

But that is interesting because then when you think about it, and I saw some pictures

of you at Mardi Gras just this past, what, last month, even though you were your civilian

clothes, you still went back and had a good time.

It was my first Mardi Gras as a, not being a policeman since I was 19 years old.

How did feel?

Oh, I felt great.

I loved it.

I had a bed about a dozen dozen oysters and I had a, a really, yeah, I ate a lot of oysters

and it's a great, great food.

I saw some, a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while and you felt safe and secure.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Because you know how it works.

You understand what's going on?

Mardi Gras is very safe.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

And it's a great philosophy and apply it to festival on the fourth and New Year's at

the Sunsphere and all of those things.

Yeah, absolutely.

And also we have a great team that's been doing this work for a really long time.

So they dialed in on everything that's going on and they really, you know, they make

my job easy for sure.

Now these overt cameras that are clearly marked as KPD cameras are just part of that

real time information center.

So when it is operational, when you do get the roof on and everything, somebody could offer

a business perhaps, maybe an individual could offer to say, Hey, I would contribute

my ring camera footage, my surveillance camera footage to this real time network, right?

Yeah.

So that's going to be the next phase of this.

Once we get the city on camera's live, the next phase is the community will be able

to link their own camera up if they choose to.

With our system as well.

And there'll be some stuff that they'll have to do to do that.

That's completely voluntary on their part because they want to reduce crime in their

own, literally, their own front yard.

Absolutely.

And they can also set the parameters on how they share information with us, which is something

that's really important.

We want people to be able to choose how they want to do that.

The other thing that's fascinating is then you've got KPD staff who are now in the command

center looking at the monitors and watching all of these feeds.

How do they help the boots on the ground?

So when they really help us, you know, when you think of all of this information coming

in, you know, it's not like we're sitting there like monitoring all these cameras real

time.

Like, you know, there's not enough humans that could be able to do that.

Yeah.

That would be weird and creepy and big brother like anyway.

It would.

It would probably be impossible anyway.

Right.

Okay.

So, but when you think about like a call for service comes in, there's a robbery, there's

a shooting, there's something, a violent crime or something, you know, a high priority

crime.

Or a pedestrian gets hit by car.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So those employees in a real time information center could access those cameras and give

information in real time to officers as they were responding to the scene.

Just kind of like watch your back.

There's something going on.

Exactly.

Or, you know, if, you know, the perpetrator is, you know, wearing a blue shirt and, you

know, you get away cars or red Honda and, you know, so often there's no thing to see.

And I have a Honda.

What are you talking about?

Could be you.

But, you know, they're giving that information to the scene.

So, like, remember, like, when we're going, we're responding to the scene of a crime that's

already happened.

So, we're already late.

Okay.

Right.

We're already late by the time we get there.

So, they give an information to our officers.

They could say the red Honda went up Chapman highway toward the city.

Now we know...

Flip on those cameras.

Where to go, where to look and it should help us be able to vector those officers in

an apprehend approach.

So...

With the real time information center, you're able to travel at the speed of light by jumping

ahead to the next set of cameras, the next neighborhood, the next area, and start your

search that way.

So, that also then brings into the idea of drones.

Yes.

As I've seen, as I've done a little bit of research here on Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noelle

and the different initiatives that KPD is talking about, you already have some drones,

but there are different drones coming and what's going on with drones.

Yeah.

So, we've been having drones here for a while now, and those are hand-flowing drones.

So, that's a drone where an officer, one of a member of our drone team, brings the

drone out to the scene and launches it and watches it.

Kind of like aerial photography, like, anybody could go buy a drone and you go buy that and

do that, or some of the TV channels, obviously, have their own drones, they can get shots of

things from the high-up.

And for the most part, those are not being deployed in real time, they've really been deployed

after the fact.

To help with the investigation, like I see a side type thing?

Yes.

All right, but what's the next step then?

So, the next step is something I'm so excited about, is that drone for first responder

program.

This will be drones that will be pre-positioned across the city, and they actually,

they will...

You push a button and they will launch themselves, and they will fly to the GPS coordinates

in the area, then the drone pilot then takes control and can look and give real-time

information to officers as they respond to the scene, or as they want to see.

All right, so I'm trying to picture this.

It's kind of like the bad signal goes up and the drone's deployed, and it's like a

helipad, right?

Yes.

Imagine it's a tiny little helicopter, and it's sitting on it's tiny little helipad

on the roof as I'm building somewhere, plugged into the charging station, waiting until it

gets the call, and then it just flies to someplace.

It's waiting to go, it's ready to go, and when we deploy it, it deploys, and it's going

to be great.

How far away are we from this?

How long?

Oh, we should have this in a fall.

Of this year, of 2026.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Oh my goodness, that's fantastic.

Yeah, you need to come check it out, it's really going to be great.

Yeah, I do.

You can be a drone pilot for us if you want, and you're free time.

If you want to crash a drone.

Well, you know, that's the thing, like it'd be really hard to crash these, you know,

they have some automated systems in them, so you probably wouldn't be able to crash.

So the drone pilot doesn't have to drive to the scene, like the first drones we talked

about, where the CSI, the investigator, the detective is flying a drone over a crime scene.

They physically are there within short range of the vehicle.

These drones you're talking about have more power, more autonomy, more GPS ability, so

that the person who's operating it could be all the way at headquarters.

They will be, and I could be, they will be.

They'll be at our road time information center, which is located in public safety complex,

and they'll be flying a drone that's taken off from a remote location, going to another

location and returning back to the remote location of recharge.

Because you're now over by Fulton High School, where the old St. Mary's Hospital was.

That's correct.

How's that working out?

That's great.

It's grace-based.

And they built it out nice for you.

Oh, it's first class.

I must say that Jackie's dream is eventually leaving that area, which is nice to be able

to walk down the stadium, right?

She is, yeah.

It's nice to be able to walk down there and get some good fried chicken for sure, but we

have to go find her over the new stadium, but, um, but it's great location.

Were you here when the old one, which is now, I guess, demolished by the civic Coliseum

was in use?

I was.

It was first building I worked out of here.

Uh-huh.

And that one, it showed its age.

It was very tired.

But you took the job anyway.

I did.

Yeah.

It did.

It reminded me.

I've watched that movie, Shutter Island, when, um, when he's walking through like that

mental institution, he can't get out.

That's what that building reminded me of.

The Tiger with KPD Chief Paul Noel, and you managed to rise up through the ranks of

the New Orleans Police Department.

How do you find the next detective, the next chief, the next leaders within KPD, because

you've been working with some of the other cities.

So we're doing that now.

So, you know, I'm a big believer in professional development.

People took time to invest in me.

And, you know, they invested in me and allowed me to become the person that I am today.

And we're really working really hard to do that with our team now.

And that's one of the reasons I'm so excited that we started a leadership academy with

Nashville and Louisville.

And we're giving our future leaders the chance to get some of that professional development

training now to learn what, what we do is chiefs and then prepare themselves to take

the reins of this place one day.

Isn't that what LNN STEM Academy stands for, Louisville and Nashville?

I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure there used to be a train station.

The LNN STEM Academy.

It was the LNN Railroad and it was the Louisville and Nashville.

Maybe so.

Well, I can Google it.

But right now, I want to continue the interview.

Yeah.

What is it about those three cities other than that they're kind of in a line geographically?

So, you know, so we send some of our senior leaders to training all across the country, right?

And the Washington DC has a really great leadership academy that we've been sending people to.

And the thought process was that we have two other big cities that are within a close

drive of us, Nashville and Louisville, that we could learn a lot from, but they also

have the ability to learn a lot from us.

So, not only can we come together to put on really a first class training program, but

those different leaders from those three cities can now come together and network and

learn from one another.

And sometimes you need to learn that all the cities are facing the same problems you

are.

And I remember the first time I learned that when I went out to Los Angeles and it was

like, wow, you know, other places are, you know, just like us, the world seemed a lot

bigger to me.

And I think that's what we're trying to do is really expand their horizons.

Because when you talk about Los Angeles and New Orleans, they are bigger than Knoxville.

And technically, I think Louisville and Nashville are both larger in terms of population.

They are.

But everything is scalable.

Everything that we're doing is scalable.

Okay.

It really is.

But what struck me is the idea of how fast East Tennessee is growing.

Knox County and Knoxville city, especially how does KPD anticipate, prepare, I guess

you hire more officers, right?

You recruit you.

What do you do?

So that's the main question, right?

So that's something that we need to be prepared for now is just the unprecedented growth

that our city and our region is facing.

So that's one of the first step of that is getting up to fully staff, right?

Because I've heard a lot of people from New Orleans are moving here.

Oh, yeah.

There's people who got me.

I moved up here and I was talking to somebody in your lobby a little while ago that moved

up here and, you know, we have two guys who work here who came up after Katrina.

Yeah.

So we're getting close to the limit, right?

There's a cat.

There's a cat on, you know, so many occasions of Creole is coming up here.

I'm guilty as charged, man.

I'm not from around here.

I'm above an import.

But, but, you know, we really need to start thinking that we're fully staffed in the

future.

We need to start thinking about the future growth, especially when you look at, let's

look at downtown this weekend.

Downtown this weekend is going to be booming and also look at all of the different entertainment

options that are coming.

We got Luke Holmes, Cummins, Savannah, bananas, and, you know, we got Michael League baseball

and a soccer team is on fire.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just, there's a lot going on in the city.

And one thing that AI or technology doesn't solve in this profession is you need human

police officers to be out there to deal with all those crowds.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got a point there when you talk about Neal and Stadium because instead

of just whatever it was, eight home football games or whatever, now you have all of these

massive concerts that some of which I think could draw maybe more than a football game.

It's going to be pretty close for sure.

A lot of people in there on the field, everything.

Absolutely.

They're going to be packed for sure.

So, we need to start thinking about what the future of not only, you know, policing,

you know, the city of Knoxville is, but also being prepared for all of the entertainment

that's coming.

Well, what about working hand in hand, specifically with Knox County Sheriff's Office, but are

neighboring counties and cities?

Well, absolutely.

So, we work really closely with the Knox County Sheriff's Office, you know, Tom Spanglin

and I've become really good friends.

And, you know, same thing with Blunt County, you know, they've had some tragedies recently

and, you know, we've had, you know, our officers going down there to assist them, respond

to call for service, all the things.

So, we work really closely together.

The brotherhood in their profession from the city police department in the Sheriff's Office

is very strong.

And the tourists who come here, mostly to go to severe county, I mean, you get a lot

of spillover that people want to come to Knoxville too.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, you know, just look at this weekend.

It's going to be packed and you get a lot of people coming through here, you know, with

the mountains and all entertainment that they're going to have to-

Does that require a different approach when policing or is it people or people?

Well, you know, look, at the end of the day, it's a different style of policing.

You know, it's on foot.

It's, you know, really trying to be observant, but also to be helpful, because we want

to put our best foot forward.

How can citizens, as we wrap up the interview with Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noelle?

How can citizens do the right thing?

I mean, obviously, you don't stab anybody.

You don't shoot anybody.

You don't get that.

You know, 10 commandments, right?

But what can we do to be cooperative, to be helpful, to make this a better community

from the perspective of law enforcement?

So a couple of things.

So the first thing I would say is, you know, if you're out there in the public and you

see one of office, just stop and thank them.

It really does feel so good.

Happens to me all the time.

A lot of times people, they don't know I'm the chief and they just come up to me and they

thank me.

So please do that, right?

These offices like really, they work in hard, they work in long hours.

So do that.

And the other thing is, when you drive around town, especially in the state, slow down.

Okay, we have a lot of people out on our roads and people here tend to drive a little fast.

Yeah.

You know, especially like the day after a NASCAR race.

Absolutely.

In the middle of a pike, I'll tell you about this thing.

Get right up behind you and then the shift lanes like their NASCAR.

It looks like that every day to me.

You know, so really, so that's something that people can really do to help us out.

It's just slow down and just be, you know, just be a little more courteous on the roads.

That's important.

Yeah.

I mean, I've caught myself a couple of times making a stupid mistake and thinking, you know

what?

I'm going to do better today.

I mean, it's my little resolution, if you will.

Well, we all guilty of it.

So I sometimes, you know, we all are, you know, but be a safer driver.

Absolutely.

I've been to making an effort to do that.

Yes.

And also, I mean, maybe it's just me, but if I don't have to take eye 40, it takes me

one minute, according to Google Maps, one minute longer to take parallel routes instead

of the interstate.

Absolutely.

You'll see some different scenery.

Yeah.

I like it.

Yeah.

One of the big things, the big push has been that staffing and recruitment.

You talk about the class, the new recruit class.

They're currently fully staffed, but you have to keep recruiting.

Because why people retire and, oh, absolutely.

We're still sitting on a retirement bubble right now.

You know, we hired, you know, an actual police department like many other departments hired

massive amount of police officers 25, 30 years ago.

So those officers are all starting to retire.

So we still have, you know, about, you know, a fourth or maybe a fifth of a department

that could retire right now.

Oh, wow.

So we're never going to have that mission accomplished moment.

We'll be saying, you know, we're done.

We're done hiring for a while.

We're going to continue to hold academies and continue to keep people coming in our department

to make sure that our experience and seniority is really kind of dispersed out as much as

we can.

Well, then describe for us an ideal candidate, because there's certain physical requirements

that are needed, right?

Absolutely.

So, you know, for us, you know, we're looking for someone that, you know, hopefully has

some education and some military, even though we don't require it.

But I'm really, I'm looking for someone that's honest, I'm looking for someone that has

a high level of integrity and that wants to learn, willing to learn, and just come help

people because that's really what police officers do more than anything.

You know, we hear all about catching the bad guys and making the bust and all that.

But for the most part, we go out to help people.

That's really what we want people to do.

Now I saw the recruitment class and I thought these are physically fit people that I'm

looking at.

And they've heard to me that you have jobs for those drone operators, for those in the

real time information center, you know, I don't have to be able to bench press 250 pounds

to work in the information center.

Absolutely.

You know, we have a strong core of professional staff that do a wide variety of different

jobs.

You know, we have a strong core of professional staff that do a wide variety of different

jobs in center.

You know, crime analysts, you know, a lot of people that we could not make our police

work, it wouldn't be for their help.

But in the meanwhile, you know, you're getting the front line too.

You want to make sure that you put your bravest forward.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, Chief Paul Noel, I appreciate you taking time to talk to us.

Hope you'll come back again periodically.

I'll come back whenever you like.

I love doing radio, for sure.

Well, it's been an absolutely wonderful education talking about the Knoxville police department

and these upcoming technologies, these upcoming trends, everything from the horses to the drones.

I mean, how do you get for all that in one interview?

Oh, it's great.

I mean, think about it.

You know, cutting edge technology has not been invented yet.

And then old school policing that we've been doing for hundreds of years, it's so cool.

All right, Chief.

Good to see you.

All right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

That's Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noel.

My name is Frank Murphy.

This is East Tennessee now.

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