Manchester Police Chief

Allen Aldenberg

Minneapolis. January 6th. Defund the police. These are challenging times for law enforcement. Safety, transparency, fairness, leadership, prioritizing, delegating and lack of bias in dealing with people of color are all under increased public scrutiny. It’s a demanding career.

Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg, who assumed leadership in October, has been with the force since 2003. He also serves as a colonel in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, with several overseas deployments, and has been awarded the Bronze Star.

Chief Aldenberg is also on the board of the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester. Trained officers partner with the Mental Health Center’s Mobile Crisis Response Team.

Visibility both within the Manchester Police Department and in the community are important to him. His monthly “Chat with the Chief” fielded upwards of 30 virtual questions in March and the plan is to go live in different parts of the city. He’s also a believer in officers having experience in a number of areas. No fiefdoms. No silos. Aldenberg has been a patrol officer, field training officer, K-9 officer and investigator in the MPD Detective Unit. He’s also been with the department’s SWAT team since 2011.

He’s given a three-year minimum commitment to Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig.

Q. MPD is one of only 40 police departments in the country committed to a 30X30 Initiative, having 30% of the department be women by the year 2030 and creating a culture that promotes qualified women to leadership roles. Is there a particular skill set that women can bring to law enforcement that’s an asset?

A. The data out there says that female officers can be more compassionate and don’t get involved in as many use-of-force incidents. Some people say we’re lowering our standards. We’re not. When I started here, we had seven female officers. Now we’re up to 25. Look around the country. Many police departments are being run by women. It’s not about empowering women. It’s about better community representation.

Q. You’ve created a chief of staff position filled by Lt. Matthew Barter. One of his duties and one of your top priorities is ensuring mental health and wellness for your officers. How is that progressing?

A. We have problem-solving teams for recruitment and retention, wellness and violent crime. Those are my three priorities. The point of Lt. Barter as chief of staff is to drive my priorities and to gather and garner the input and buy-in from as many employees in the PD as we can. It’s not just about mental health wellness but wellness in general. Our officers need financial wellness. Sometimes families become the forgotten victim in police work.

Q. There’s bipartisan support in the Legislature for mandatory body cams. MPD has been using them for a year and a half. What kind of grade would you give them? What are the pluses and minuses?

A. Two things cops don’t like: the way things are and change. We got that resistance early on with, ‘What are they (meaning the administration) going to be doing with this?” But over time we’re seeing that it’s accepted as a way of life.

A benefit’s been that it’s an excellent training tool. When I have new officers riding with their field-training officer and then they go to a call, the field-training officer can take the trainee back to the station and they can sit in the cruiser and look at the video. Citizen complaints are something we track to see if those are trending down, and thus far they are. It also gets rid of complaints that come in that aren’t even true. We’ll just play the video.

It’s the way we’re going. You talk about transparency. I’m sure you saw that body cam image from Minnesota. It’s ugly, I get it. But at least it’s captured. Nobody is going to doubt how it went down or how it happened.

Q. You’ve expanded annual inservice to 40 hours a week and it now includes bias training, cultural competency and deescalation. You also have a liaison officer in the LGBTQ community. Are these indicative of a different direction for a police department?

A. It’s the change in times. The liaison for the LGBTQ community — that need was brought to our attention by human resources and City Hall. You can say what you want but you have to adjust and keep up or fall behind. We have to be as progressive as we can.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t covered?

A. I want people to know that the men and women of the Manchester Police Department come to work every day with the intent of doing the right thing. We know we’re not perfect. Will we ever be perfect? No. Is there a perfect police department in this country? No, and if there is I probably don’t want to work there because they’re not recognizing their faults.