One-on-One With Chief Jennings For CMPD’s 30th Anniversary

CHARLOTTE – The charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

On October 1st, 1993, the Charlotte Police Department merged with the Mecklenburg Police Department  to become one agency.

Wednesday, the agency’s top cop, Chief Johnny Jennings sat down with WCCB’s Emma Mondo for an exclusive one-on-one interview about the anniversary. She asked him why is it important for our community to understand the merging of these two departments.

“Well we’ve come such a long way,” said Jennings. “If you look back 30 years ago and how we policed, we had two separate agencies that were serving our citizens, and city managers had the foresight to say ‘we are stronger if we we combine our efforts’ and that’s exactly what happened.”

Jennings ,a 32 year law enforcement veteran, was on the force during the merge. He tells WCCB he’s seen growth and change for the better.

“As we see the responsibilities become greater and the expectations are even greater on our officers and the accountability we have with our officers, technology has helped us get there and as we continue to do more with less, we need that technology to help us be more affective and more efficient,” said the Chief.

Jennings reflects back on tough times in the city, particularly, the unrest in charlotte in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.

“That was something you learn from. as bad as it was you might look back at it and say how bad it was, but we also came out better on the other end.”

WCCB asked what is something that Chief Jennings wants to tackle moving forward in the next 30 years.

“We don’t want to come across as simply an authoritative figure that is there on your worst day that you’re having maybe in your life at times,” said Jennings “We want to be more empathetic towards that.”