Meet Thomas Radke, the new police chief

After the retirement of Doug McCloskey last summer, the Wrangell Police Department has been operating without an official police chief. That came to an end last week, as Tom Radke started his job as the city's new chief. Some community members may remember Radke from a meet-and-greet back in November, where he and other potential candidates for the police chief position came to town to meet city officials and the people of Wrangell. Radke was the borough's final selection

According to his resume, provided by the city, Radke comes with almost 26 years of experience in law enforcement. He began as a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1994. From there he worked his way up the ladder to become Commander of the St. Paul Police Department in 2016. In 2018 he took another police officer position in Kenyon, Minnesota. He decided to relocate to Wrangell because he was looking for something different, he said. He was used to policing in big cities with hundreds of thousands of people. Coming to an island community of about 2,500 is certainly a change.

"We have five kids and they're all in college, so we wanted something different," Radke said. "This was kind of the time to branch out and see what's out there ... So I retired from there and opened up a pizza restaurant. Me and my wife still own that, matter of fact she's taking care of that now, then we saw this job kind of pop up and yeah, why not try it?"

Only into his first week on the job, Radke said that he did not have any priorities or big changes planned for the Wrangell Police Department yet. He is still learning the ropes and says that he wants to be open to suggestions from the wider community. He wants to learn what is working and what needs fixing before going around making changes. He added that he intends to keep himself open to constructive criticism, as well.

Policing in Wrangell poses some unique challenges, he said, compared to the metropolitan Twin Cities area he is used to. For one thing, simply being on an island is a unique challenge when it comes to something like towing away abandoned cars. In St. Paul, he said that it was a relatively simple procedure. In Wrangell, however, there are questions like where the cars can be stored and what they can be towed with. The extra expenses of island life is another unique challenge he pointed out. On top of all this, he said that he has heard of community concerns about an increasing drug problem in Wrangell. This is a nation-wide issue, he said, but in a small island town there are unique challenges yet again. It is one thing to know about a drug problem, he said, but another thing to prove it so the police can act.

"There's a lot of things that I'm used to, as far as policing, that here you have to give an extra look at," Radke said. "You're on an island, there's other challenges here that you don't have in a bigger area."

Radke will be spending about two weeks in Wrangell, he said, before he has to fly south for some training for a couple of weeks. He added a request that the Wrangell community do their best not to park on the streets during snowy weather, to make things easier for snow plows to do their jobs.

Despite the unique challenges Wrangell may pose, Radke said that he is feeling good about his new position and is eager to become a part of the community.

"When I get back, I think I'll have more kind of mapped out as we go into spring," he said. "I'm looking forward to obviously having more conversations with various community members."