Paul Petersen became the face of Kent Police to some extent because of his appearances on Seattle television stations to talk about major crime incidents in the city that received news coverage.<\/p>\n
But those duties and all other aspects of Petersen\u2019s job as the Kent Police public information officer for the last 14 years are over. Petersen, 63, retired June 30 after 20 years in Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a solid contributor and a person who brings calm and a lack of panic,\u201d said Lt. Bob Cline at a retirement party for Petersen June 30 at City Hall.<\/p>\n
Cline talked about how well Petersen handled meetings to discuss potential scenario disasters.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a very calm approach,\u201d Cline said. \u201cHe always had a well thought-out response. I also don\u2019t think we recognized all that he does. We will miss that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not all Cline expects to miss about Petersen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll miss that mustache and smile,\u201d Cline said.<\/p>\n
Petersen worked as a detective and on street patrol before he became the public information officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 20 years have gone by rather quickly,\u201d Petersen said at his party. \u201cWhen you enjoy yourself, time flies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petersen credited the people at his party – his long-time coworkers and friends – for making his job easier.<\/p>\n
In addition to providing information to the media, Petersen ran the Kent Police Citizens Academy, a 10-week course designed to educate residents about police work.<\/p>\n
Petersen, who grew up in Northfield, Minn., has big plans for his first month or so of life after work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first six weeks I\u2019m going to stay very busy growing a beard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Petersen, who lives in Kent with Silke Petersen, his wife of 39 years, plans to take a lot of trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll travel to see family and friends and just enjoy ourselves,\u201d Petersen said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, readers of the Kent Reporter\u2019s Best of Kent contest voted Petersen as the best police officer.<\/p>\n
Lt. Lisa Price has replaced Petersen as the public information officer. She has worked more than 22 years with the Kent Police and is in charge of recruiting, hiring, training and community education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Petersen became the face of Kent Police to some extent because of his appearances on Seattle television stations to talk about major crime incidents in the city that received news coverage. But those duties and all other aspects of Petersen\u2019s job as the Kent Police public information officer for the last 14 years are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":17077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17076"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}