10.8.2024 Appointment of Kelly Furtado as Interim Police Chief

um I just want to welcome everybody to the safest place in the city of Fall River today um we we'll get through this together um this is really an introductory uh press conference for our new chief of police um she's going to be filling the shoes of um Paul Garin who's going out on leave um I want to compliment Paul for the effort he put in while he was with the city and I'm going

forward we hope that uh we can build on that and uh build a stronger Police Department for the residents in our city um with that being said I've uh I've known Kelly Fado or Captain Kelly Fado for a long long time we worked together at dery high school she was an SRO along with Mike perea when I was there and we were in each other's offices all the time I've seen how she interacts with

the public I've seen how she interacts with teenagers and I've seen how she interacts with staff and in her role now as a captain in the forign police department she stepped up and gained the confidence of um her fellow officers and our community um with that being said I know she has a few remarks she wants to make and we're going to take a few questions afterward but I do want

everyone to int to introduce the first female police chief in the history of the city of Fall River Captain Kelly Fado thank you I got I got of course the first thing that happens is all these mics fall down I got it I got it all right faith is being assigned my first assignment is Faith is going to hold all those mics so they don't keep falling thank you mayor cougan good afternoon being chosen

as interim chief of police for the Fall River is a profound honor especially as the daughter wife and mother of a Fall River Police Officer this moment fills me and my family with deep Pride my dad taught me my sorry my dad taught my sisters and me the importance of Faith patriotism and the true meaning of service for him being a police officer wasn't about the title but about helping others

and that's what he instilled in us becoming the first female Chief in for River history is a responsibility I carry with pride not just for myself but for every woman in law enforcement and every young girl with big dreams I'm grateful to the officers mentors Community leaders who have supported me along the way this is a an achievement that we all share Fall River has a rich history and I am privileged to continue

serving this community my vision is to make community policing the heart of our approach where every resident feels connected to us knowing we are their Partners in building a safer more inclusive City inside the department I want to Foster collaboration in teamwork something that's been missing in recent Years thank you teamwork thank you police sorry policing thrives on unity and by recognizing each person's

strengths in working together we can achieve in working together we can achieve great things my commitment is to create a department where every member feels empowered inv valued I know challenges lie ahead but I believe that by working together with our department Community Community Partners in the people of Fall River we can face the challenges headon this is a new chapter of Fall

River and I am excited to write to write it alongside the community I love the department I love and the officers that I am so very proud to lead thank you so we do have a big crowd here today and if anybody has any questions just raise your hand and we'll call on you uh Dan madus Herold

news is that question for me of the mayor obviously uh she's got a six-month running start we'll see how she does um I I have tremendous confidence in her but we're going to uh we want to see how she progresses as the chief and I think she's going to do a great job and we're not decided yet on which way we're going to go forward at the end but we have

plenty of time for that question later Dan Keith what into your decision um well we we did we uh had the fortune of talking to a a couple of very confident District Chiefs we talked to another Captain we kicked around ideas with a number of the people up here behind us talking to us and at this time we thought that would be the best fit for going forward in the police department right now with that being

said um as I just spoke with Dan nothing nothing closes out anything I know at this time Kelly has a a ton of good ideas that she wants to implement along with the help of the guys and the girls that are all behind us that are going to try to move this department forward and let's see how she does but uh we did do some extensive interviews myself Nick and uh Seth we asked questions we talk

to people and we got the flavor of what we think would be best at this time can you talk about the New Direction um the previous chief go sorry I'm gonna say it wrong Goin um it seems that it was a mutual agreement that it was time to go in a New Direction can you elaborate on that uh that I don't know do you want to okay thank you Kelly

um no uh at the time the the former Chief gin came forward and offered um to take a leave of absence and step back from it at this time he thought he put um his feelings secondary to the city and when he made that offer it also gave us the ample opportunity with what had been going on in the department to to make a fresh start and that's where we

get it the homeless ordinance fines can you talk about that at all we'll talk at the end on the homeless ordinance fine I'll come over and see you thanks Captain um I know there's been a lot of frustrations in the past when it comes to leadership so what are you looking to do differently um when you start my main focus is to reorganize the department um these are all the people I've worked

with and they know I've said this for at least 10 years this place is still running like 1968 when my father was hired it's still the same way so um we need to reinvigorate we need to uh modernize we need to do some um reorganizing to maximize our um Manpower issue and do you think I know the mayor mentioned that it's kind of like a test run right now do you think you can prove

that you will be able to be Chief he's already laughing 100% And You And to be honest I don't think anybody in here right right now will let me fail because they'll be po My Success I only can be successful if they're successful and that's what's important to me right now question for the mayor let's talk a little bit about your challenges that your Administration has faced since

you've taken over here um whether it's um interim Chief Fado or a different Chief this would be the first Chief that you will have since you've taken office can you talk a little bit about the challenges that you have faced um with the forer police department and its leadership well it's it's really that that's one part of it but I was when we were talking the other day about this

you have to look at where we've come from in the city of Fall River I'm on my third fire chief I'm on my third superintendent of schools and as I said the other day these are all big high stress important important decisions to the city of Fall River and they're turning over what's going on Nationwide these jobs are not as popular as they once were and then and the stress that

goes along with them whether it's new reporting requirements from post whether it's recruitment whether it's retention whether it's the community these are these are very very stressful jobs across the board and we ask for special people to step up and do it has it been a challenge absolutely is is it a challenge we're willing to take on in the city of Fall River absolutely and I think uh I'm I'm very uh fortunate to

have all these people behind me today saying that they're willing to tackle this at the same time so I think we're going to be fine but this is not just the police department as I said i' I've been getting hit on all of the departments in the city so we have to work our way through it just to follow up on that there was a vote of no confidence um by the unions of the

police department and uh Chief gin um how confident are you that your selection is going to help ease the minds of your officers um who have obviously expressed his pleasure in the leadership that they've had well she she's going to have to she's going to she's going to stand with those people down there as a team and and I'm sure because I know her vast experience she's been everything from dispatcher down at

that station so she knows how it works she knows who to who's going to help her the most and where she can look for new people to give her fresh ideas I'm sure she'll be fine and we're not talking about those votes at this time we're talking about things in the past but I do appreciate your questions Jess Ben Burke NPR hi um there's been five Chiefs who have worked under you're

the fifth Chief that's going to be working under mayor kran in about five years why has there been so much over at the top of the police department and what do you think the department needs to have more stability and consistency at the top well I I it's like the mayor said uh it's a stressful position um people have left for many different reasons um some of them just personal I think that to

move the department forward that'll be different is that um we really have to work on teamwork in making people feel important in wanting to be here and as far as like Chiefs leaving um when I first came on uh I was high in Janu it was January 4th 1988 we had a a little time there that we uh went through a lot of chiefs too so I don't know if it's just like the

turnover where people are at the end of their careers and they're just looking to do something short term um I I'm not not quite sure why there there was such a turnover to be honest you know so anything further yeah um so the uh the units that you've commanded as Special Operations Command U they one might argue they have sort of like almost a community focused uh angle yes absolutely how does uh how would that

translate to your leading the entire department the entire police force and do you think that benefits at all in the way that you'll approach the the chief J so my whole career everything that I've done has always been part of a uh community policing mindset so to bring that department wide that will uh be easy for me it's always been easy for me um my brain goes like a mile a minute so

I always have like you know what we can do you know what we can do you know that goes at home too I'm always telling my husband you know what we can do he's like I'm sick of hearing about it but um it's always been community policing has always been unit focused you know and I really think it's so important for um officers to be able to experience everything and to experience the

community where right now it's just a certain amount of officers that get to experience the good in the community right so for me it's great when people are working and they get to experience the bad and the good of policing but then you have like the uniform division that just is that mundane call after call after call so I think it's it's healthy for um the younger officers to start taking on some of that Community

policeing getting them involved with going to the events getting them involved in going to Neighborhood groups um getting them to buy in to the community policing uh mindset and that's twofold one it's it's great for the community two it's great for them it it alleviates a lot of the negativity that comes along with just this job in general you know so it's nice to see that hey I can go to a community group

and be around people that are not just looking to me to solve problems they're looking um you know to talk with them to get to know them uh and and it's good for the people of the community to talk to officers because then they become more real you know they uh throughout my career um I was uh had a couple of kids in um there'd be an afghan blanket at the front window waiting for me because

they heard I had the baby right which my baby's standing here somewhere he's 32 so he's not so much a baby anymore which I don't understand because I'm only like still 25 but anyway so yeah I am a huge huge huge fan of community policing and engaging um with the community can you just respond to uh Jess's question about the the Union's vote on U no confidence with the previous Chief do you feel you have to

mend some fences because there may be some officers that still supported the current chief I don't feel I have to mend any fences I've been there since I was 18 I'm like part of the woodwork work so no I don't feel like I need to do that at all mayor um we talked a little bit about the switches and Leadership over the years you know what would be your message to the community

who's seeing all these changes and probably wondering what's going on I think I think changes in leadership at the top many times don't affect the community all these guys are still driving a car pulling a shift responding the calls that's not diminished the uh uh one iota so that work continues and it's going to continue the rest of the day and and it's going to continue on for as long

as Kelly is uh is the chief the thing going forward that you have to remember is we're not going to be um we're not going to be in a position where changing a chief affects an entire department it will from her leadership perspective but nobody's going to quit working no one's going to give up on the residents of the city and we're going to carry this forward to we have live in a a safer

cleaner healthier Community for everybody and that's the message the chief the Chiefs are going to come and go Mayors are going to come and go but it's the continuity that breeds itself into the city which keeps it functioning at a high level which is what we want if we could just one more um let's speaking of um uh the community and messages um I noticed all your female police officers

are up front we have two female City councilors over here and we have our first Chief or interim Chief um that's a female what kind of message is this sending um to the community about the uh leadership that females are taking in fall river right now from my perspective we promote the best we promote the best we hire the best um I know many of these female police officers were students of

myy so I know the quality and the character they have and I know what an asset they are to our department and and uh as I said there's not one job in that department that um Chief uh Chief Fado has not had so she knows how it works and she knows how things should go and that's why she uh she's standing here today it's not really because she's a woman although it

is a historic moment for the city and I'm glad to be part of it but I think she'll do a good job if her name was Jack Fado I have another question for the mayor um I'm wondering if you could describe what it was like uh working with Miss Fado in the schools and what she was like as a school resource officer I drove him crazy the best all right this is I'm

going to do this because we're on uh we're on regular TV too working with Kelly was a ball of fire okay she she cared about the kids and she understood how a school should flow there's a flow to a school and that's what people have to understand when you're in there all the time there's a flow to the school and she understood the flow to the school what kids went where who ate

lunch where who interacted with who and as you walk around the halls the more you're there the more you know how things are going to settle into a routine for the staff for the students and Kelly got it she knew how this should work I mean at night they were running basketball camps for the kids there on her own time so these were the kind of people that I looked for to

depend on I mean I I can honestly tell you when I was there we were talking about this yesterday sometimes you'd have two girls that were fighting and and when Kelly would come i' you know if I had to help break up the fight and I get him back to office I'd let her imediate the fight I'd leave cuz I knew she knew what she was doing she knew how

to calm people down she knew how to get people back on track and I had confidence in her and I I have confidence in her now but I was with her every day I mean pretty much if you want to say what it was like work with me don't do that because it'll be your last day here we we had the same mindset with the um community policing mindset I know

that that's like a buzzword but it really truly is but we were doing that before community policing came out we we wanted to make the schools safer before lockdown drills came out we we worked together to put in place um emergency response teams of Medical Teams to to uh somebody was sick to respond we did open gyms at night for so that we could have a place for kids to go and was it was

all informal stuff we'd have two 300 kids at dery high school um twice two three times a week and it would just be me and my partner uh Mike Perera and then um Mr cougan Mayor cougan would come and check in on us and he facilitated a lot of uh the ability for us to hold those events we started the teen Police Academy in 2004 which is still um still going today we just tried

to get the kids engaged and uh he was our biggest supporter at at the uh school but we did drive him a little crazy sometimes but it was good it was it was probably one of the most profound times of my career was working at the school and that still it just pays back still today when you run into a kid that's like hey you helped me out or hey

you know what you really saved my life I really took to heart those words you said to me so um it was good it was good work in there it was fun we had a lot of fun yeah we had a lot of fun yeah anything further guys okay well thank you very much I want to thank everybody for coming out today I appreciate it and uh let's we'll we'll

slide our way back to work thanks thank you