COVINGTON, Ky. – Covington’s newest police officers are a Marine and a recent college graduate.

 

Nicollette Brown and Trent Webster, respectively, were sworn in and received their badges this morning in a brief ceremony at City Hall. Both will start training in early October at the academy in Richmond run by the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training.

 

In front of family and friends, they were welcomed to the Covington Police Department by Mayor Joe Meyer and Police Chief Rob Nader, both of whom talked about the responsibilities of the job.

 

“It’s tough to be a police officer in this era,” Mayor Joe Meyer said. “We place unreasonable expectations on our police, unreasonable because it’s not enough to keep us safe – you also have to be a marriage counselor, a social worker, a psychologist, and a community leader who is expected to solve all the problems that we as a society don’t want to deal with.”

 

Brown is a softball coach at Simon Kenton High School who has a degree in criminal justice from Fayetteville State University in North Carolina and most recently worked at Corken Steel Products. She served in the U.S. Marine Corps, where she was a military police investigator at Camp Pendleton and supervised security for Marine Corps Base Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan. While in college, she was an Honors Intern with the FBI.

 

Webster is a recent graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, where he earned a degree in criminal justice. While at EKU, he was a resident adviser, president of the American Criminal Justice Association, and a volunteer for numerous organizations.

 

Nader said the department was thrilled to gain two new recruits as it works to fill the void left by a spate of recent retirements.

 

“On the back of your badges are our core values – the words ‘integrity, professionalism, justice and compassion’ – you will live by those,” the Chief said.

 

Meyer talked about the diversity of Covington’s populations and neighborhoods and noted that the department has worked hard to create and nurture good relations with all the people it serves.

 

“For most people, you’re the face of the City, because most residents will interact with you way more than me or the rest of the Commission,” he said. “Being a police officer is not just the act of a single individual but a collective representation of the insights and values of the entire community.”

 

Fortunately, the Mayor said, new officers in Covington are well equipped for the job given the top-notch leadership in the Police Department, as well as its training and policies and procedures.

 

“We’re very proud of our Department,” he said.

 

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