by Dave DeMars
Police Chief Perry Beise’s desk is covered with neatly aligned sheafs of papers that are part of the day’s work, and by the end of the day, Beise will have sorted through, read, commented on and signed off on most of the material presented. It’s not his favorite part of the job, but it’s necessary.
Beise has been in law enforcement for 30 years – 22 as a patrol officer and eight as chief of the Sauk Rapids Police Department. And as Beise would be quick to tell you, paperwork is not what drew him to a career in law enforcement but rather a kind of roll of the dice.
The road to now
Beise grew up in Hastings, and like many young people in the 1980s, he went off to college with high hopes and a sense of adventure. Beise says he really can’t say what drew him to law enforcement, but reasoned if he ever got injured, he could go back to teaching.
He had three choices when he graduated from college in 1984 with a major in history and political science. Then he decided to go back and either get a degree in teaching, law enforcement or a minor in business. It came down to either teaching history and social studies, or law enforcement.
“Law enforcement won,” he said. “When I finally finished college, like a lot of police officers, I started applying everywhere that appeared reasonable.”
Reasonable meant places like Fergus Falls, Morris, Rochester and even Eau Claire, Wis. Anywhere and everywhere is a possibility when looking for a job.
“My dad had the adage, ‘Take the first job that’s offered to you, and then go look for the job that you want,” Beise said.
One of those early jobs took him to Morris and, after nine months, to St. Cloud. Beise spent many years with the St. Cloud police looking for that “job you want.” When the position in Sauk Rapids opened up, it seemed like a good fit.
What drew him to apply for the chief’s position in Sauk Rapids was his familiarity with the town. He had lived in Sauk Rapids since 1988, and he liked the town. It seemed to be a good opportunity without a big change in scenery, and yet it had good officers and a solid reputation.
Historical changes
Eight years – Beise took the reins as chief in 2008 – is not a lot of time, but there have been changes in the department, mostly for the good.
The amount and the types of crimes haven’t dramatically changed, Beise said. But there have been other changes. Beise took over at a time when the country was experiencing the Great Recession and it hit the Sauk Rapids Police Department just like other businesses.
“We didn’t fund the community service officer position because of a downturn in the economy,” Beise noted. “We tightened our belts, we cut any overtime, we held off on some purchases to make sure everything citywide would keep running.”
Other changes included an increase in personnel. The department now has 15 officers, including a K-9 officer. Equipment has changed somewhat, but Beise said he feels they have always had good equipment for a department the size of Sauk Rapids. One of the things he expects the department will get soon is body cameras for officers.
Personal style
Beise said he feels one’s leadership style is formed before even leaving high school; we pick and choose and add elements along the way. Personality, people-interaction styles, how we follow and how we lead is at least half developed by the time we graduate from high school.
“I’ve taken something from all of my police chiefs and sergeants and supervisors,” he said. “Sometimes it is ‘I will never do that, that way.’”
Beise said he has observed supervisors who are more laissez-faire and others who are very authoritarian. Both styles can work, and a good supervisor needs to have more than one style to call on. Situations demand we adapt, and some need more direction, some need less.
Right now, it’s very difficult to find a large number of quality police officers, Beise said. “Every chief will agree with that,” he said.
“We used to get 150 applicants,” he said. “We just had to put the ad out and the applications would pour in. Now we get 30 – maybe. And that has held for the last couple of years.”
The decline in numbers could be due to a couple of things, he said. Between 2008 and 2010, hiring basically froze. The other thing is right now police officers are getting beat up by the media, and by state and federal leaders. Potential police candidates are simply choosing not to get beat up like that. They choose other careers, take other paths, like teaching and business.
“A lot of college students, I’m told, are changing their majors,” Beise said, “so we have less of a pool to draw from.”
Makeup of a good cop
Beise said the kind of qualities he believes a good cop possesses include honesty, the ability to work independently and a track record of dependability.
“We’re looking for the same kind of employees everyone else is,” Beise said, “honest, ethical, hardworking, trustworthy, can communicate with people . . . and independent problem-solvers.”
It’s not an easy job, he said, and it takes a special kind of person to do it well. There’s lots of stress, and sometimes the stress goes home with the officer. There is a slightly higher rate of divorce and suicide among police officers, he said. It’s a job where a person can develop post traumatic stress syndrome. There is a high level of anxiety and frustration officers experience.
“They just don’t solve every problem with a hammer,” he said. “They have a whole tool kit to use in any situation.”
Beise described his own style of leadership as one of coaching. He said he likes to hear input from his coworkers because he doesn’t have a corner on the best way to do the job. Everyone has something they can add to the understanding of the problem and then they can solve it together, he added.
His style of leadership and perhaps his understanding of how government works aids him in dealing with the city council. He said he sees and understands the difficulties they face and the need to get all departments in the city working together and sharing limited resources.
“They have to take my recommendations,” he said, “along with the recommendations from public works, from all the departments and leaders in the city and then make the best decision in the best interests of the city.”
Department structure
There’s always a question about how many police officers are needed, what is the right ratio of police to population. Sauk Rapids has about one officer per 1,000 people or 15 officers to serve about 15,000 people.
It’s a pretty good ratio in comparison to some other cities, but Beise said, more importantly than a simple ratio is to base the need on the amount of activity in the area. One hardly needs lots of officers in a retirement community where everyone goes to bed at 8 p.m.
“We could use a couple more officers,” Beise said. “It would make it a little more safe on the evening shift. There are times you want two officers there and you don’t want to have to count on mutual aid from other towns. They might be busy and not be able to assist.”
The makeup of a community dictates the needs in policing, Beise said. If it’s a large area to police, with lots of businesses and apartments, there’s going to be a greater need for police presence. It boils down to a simple case of numbers, he added.
“If you put a lot of multi-family housing all in one spot and pack all these people into one area, obviously you are going to have more calls there,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with the type of people there. It’s just you have more people there.”
What dictates the number of police on the force is the number and types of calls. If the number of calls and the difficulty factor of those calls increases, a case can be made for increasing the size of the force, Beise said. It’s more reactive than proactive as far as personnel resources.
Beise said he sees some of that decision as being political. If the city council were to guess wrong, they might have to cut a person, so policing is almost always going to be reactive rather than proactive because no one wants to be accused of spending money frivolously.
Wish list for the future
If Christmas came early, Beise has a few things he would have on his list, like license-plate readers.
Many times when squad cars go out on a call, they pass or meet the car involved in the call and by the time they are able to check, the car is gone. A reader would give officers immediate recognition, so they can respond more quickly.
A reader also identifies a car that might be stolen, or if the owner of a car has a warrant for his or her arrest. That kind of technology helps police do a better job of protecting the city.
Another item Beise would like is video cameras on major thoroughfares, so when a crash happens, police can better understand how it happened and who is accountable.
Observations about policing
Asked whether the demonstrations of Black Lives Matter and perceived negative events in other parts of the state and country have a significant effect on local policing, Beise said he thought they did.
Whenever a cop does something wrong, Beise said, whether it’s corrupt or simply by mistake, everybody looks at their hometown police department and wonders “Are they the same?”
Beise said, however, Minnesota has exceptionally well-trained police officers. A two-year associate’s degree or five years of military police training is necessary in most cases. An officer undergoes background checks, psychological evaluations and police training before wearing the uniform.
“Other states require a high-school education, and then they train you afterward,” he said. “In some cases, you might even work (on the job) before you get training.”
And generally, Beise said, police in Minnesota are well paid. They don’t have to take second jobs to make ends meet. In some southern states, they are barely above the poverty level and they make up the difference either in overtime or by moonlighting doing some other kind of work.
Beise is complimentary toward the Sauk Rapids City Council. They are quite supportive of the department, he said, and they are supportive of all city operations.
As for the public, the one thing he would like people to do is to call when they think something is not right.
“Call us when you see something,” he said. “We can’t be everywhere, but when a citizen sees something on the street that looks suspicious, or hears something at night that sounds suspicious, pick up the phone, dial 911 and say. ‘Hey I see this, can you come look at this?'”
His son is following in his footsteps even though he started in engineering, with sidetracks into linguistics and other areas.
“This is a good career,” Beise said. “We help a lot of people and we do a job that is necessary.”