CELEBRATION
FORT PIERCE POLICE DEPARTMENT
35
A statue patterned after Sgt. Danny Parrish stands in perpetual salute beneath
the flag outside the Fort Pierce Police Department building on U.S. 1.
DARK DAYS
Sadly, not all firsts were positive. Almost half a century
after being formed, its first officer died in the line of duty.
Officer Willie B. Ellis’s end of watch was July 17, 1966. The
Avenue D substation was dedicated to him in 2000.
A 1930 newspaper article mentions that a theft victim
caught the perpetrator and took him to the police station
since the police “force” quotation marks added by the
reporter had been reduced to one day and one night patrolman.
Despite the fact that the city commission discussed
curtailment of the department altogether at one point, it
continued to grow and improve.
The department introduced two-way radios in 1940.
Fingerprinting was put into use about the same time. Technological
advances in the last 30 years, however, have improved
policing astronomically.
Jim Tedder was in local law enforcement for 50 years, including
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“The conditions can be compared to going from the horse
and buggy days to today,” says Tedder. “We didn’t even have
walkie-talkies. Dispatch had no way to contact you — or you,
them. If you were in a difficult situation, you had to win.”
GAME CHANGER
Greg Kirk, who retired in 2015 after 33 years with the
FPPD, is a background investigator and polygraph specialist
for the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.
“When I started with the police, I wasn’t polygraphed,”
he recalls. “I wasn’t asked a lot of questions. But Kerlikowske
wanted officers vetted on the front end so he sent me to poly- >>
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