Our Island City Community is one to cherish, and a community others look to emulate.  Why? Despite our City’s small size, we continue to focus on large ambitions for the future. We have accomplished so much together but continue to raise the benchmarks to achieve new goals - and that is why I am so honored to serve as your new Chief of Police. 

Working with my 50 fellow colleagues of the Wilton Manors Police Department, we are focused on enhancing public safety operations in five key priority areas. 

Public safety is, and will always be our #1 priority.  Our agency will continuously endeavor to employ competent, responsive and professional police and investigative services with a goal of deterring, detecting and apprehending criminal activity.  Criminals should have no level of comfort in our Island City.

Second, training will remain a primary focus as it is our obligation to employ competent, professional and progressive services to our community.  The pillars of any successful law enforcement organization include strong training components, such as police tactics, criminal investigations, cultural IQ and critical incident management.  Ongoing training is essential to ensuring our police department is well-prepared to serve and protect our community.  

Our third prime interest has a nexus to our first; enhance the safety of our community through the acquisition of public safety technologies.  We will strive to bring advanced systems to assist us with improved transparency and accountability in our duties, to capture vital evidence and testimony for criminal cases and to capture the quality work of our personnel.  We will look to fortify our City with technologies to enhance real time crime detection solutions, and to bolster our criminal investigative efforts.  We must also look to employ other real time crime deterrent and detecting solutions, and these initiatives will look to decrease crime rates and improve case solvability percentages.    

Fourth, we hold great value in the relationships we have established with the members of our community.  Our community is what motivates us to “serve and protect”, and we will look to further enhance these established partnerships.  It is equally important for us to seek out those who may have lost trust in our police department. We will remain committed to repairing these fractured relationships because we know it takes all of us, to accomplish our public safety missions.  Remember, Together We’re Better!    

Finally, in 2022 the Wilton Manors Police Department will seek reaccreditation for the fourth time since becoming accredited with the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation in 2010.  This accreditation ensures our department maintains the highest of standards, and is evaluated on our ability to maintain and exceed these standards, by an outside professional organization.    

In closing, our new vision will be, “The professionals of the Wilton Manors Police Department, through quality training initiatives, innovative techniques and proactive partnerships with our community, will endeavor to be the pinnacle of our law enforcement profession”, and we look forward to fulfilling this vision together with you.  Thank you!

Sincerely,

Gary Blocker
Chief of Police

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