Capt. Sammy Shaffer is not intimated by a challenge. He’s successfully navigated many during 21 years at the Knoxville Police Department (KPD). His newest is big, important, and includes 15 square miles, six beats and 55 officers as commander of the new Central District. His “beat” is downtown Knoxville and areas around the University of Tennessee, Fort Sanders and South Knoxville.
Sammy Shaffer
This new district is part and parcel of new Police Chief Paul Noel’s reorganization to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the department in all areas of the community. Prior to this change, KPD operated its Patrol Division in two districts – West and East. The Patrol Division’s new name is “Field Operations.”
Shaffer, 47, is a Knoxville native with a unique background that no doubt caught the chief’s attention. He was reared here in Cumberland Estates, graduated from West High in 1993, knows Knoxville like the back of his hand, is second generation KPD and walked, rode and biked beats in downtown for four years.
His childhood and growing up time were all KPD. His father, Gary, a KPD legend, spent 31 distinguished years at the department, retiring as a sergeant. Sammy’s younger brother, Josh, is a KPD lieutenant. At the recent promotions ceremony, his father pinned the new captain’s bars on his son. It was a special and proud moment. Smiles. A handshake. Hugs. Tears. Two throats full of big frogs. The promotion also elevates Shaffer to the chief’s command staff.
The captain’s KPD resume reflects a career of challenges – a patrol officer, bicycle officer, patrol sergeant, lieutenant over Homeland Security/Emergency Management and, most recently, the training director of the KPD Police Academy, a job his father also held. He also served on the department’s Special Operations Squad (SWAT) and Bomb Squad. Shaffer completed the Southeastern Leadership Academy and has a bachelor’s degree in aviation administration (more on that later).
In 2017, he was selected the KPD Officer of the Year.
There is a bit of an oddity in his story. Before becoming a KPD officer, he worked in the city’s sign shop painting signs and then spent almost six years at, of all places, the Knoxville Fire Department (KFD) beginning when he was 20. “Not real sure today why I did that,” he says. “It’s a running joke in the family that I was not invited to Thanksgiving dinner during those years. But really, Dad was very supportive.”
Now, about his new job and the new Central District. “The main idea is to divide the city into smaller areas for more concentrated service and support to impact the crime rate. The downtown has grown so much in the last few years,” Shaffer says. “I’m spending time examining the crime statistics in this district and will be putting together a strategy for us going forward.”
The growth in downtown, he says, blows his mind. “The majority of our special events are downtown or at UT, plus the population growth, the explosion of people living downtown today plus the growth in the suburbs. And pretty soon we will have the new downtown baseball stadium.”
Helping him is his executive officer, Lt. Will Wilson. “We’re going to be working on building community relationships, examining the problems and issues using the data, going to community meetings and meeting with community leaders. I’m a get-out-there-with-the-guys type to see and hear what’s going on first hand,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer’s plans include “boots on the ground” in the mission district (the Knox Area Rescue Ministries area), the Old City, South Knoxville, Vestal and downtown. “We have the homeless issues in this district and we want to control the number of complaints and address the issues in a very professional and helpful manner,” he explained. “Being there makes a difference.”
He knows all of the issues: “Drugs are everywhere across the board in this district … Downtown has a lot of property crimes … Fort Sanders and around UT has a lot of property crimes too, stolen cars, cars broken into and burglarized, assaults. We plan to work more closely with the University of Tennessee Police Department and we’re doing that now. They bring a lot to the table.”
Somewhere down the road the issue of retirement will arise. Enter his degree in aviation administration from Utah Valley University. “I’ve always had in the back of my head an interest in aviation and maybe that will be what I do in retirement.”
He and his wife have two daughters. Family time, he says, is his away-from-work relaxation of choice. But some of the talk at home ventures into work as well. He met his wife through work. She has been a dispatcher at the Knox County Emergency Communications 911 Center for 25 years. “We do talk shop and we can’t help it. It’s good to unwind that way and vent. My escape is our family time.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia.