Coatesville police chief stepped into and welcomed a challenge

Jack Laufer says that when he came to Coatesville, he was looking for a challenge. Evidently, he came to the right place.

Since January, he has been the chief of its troubled police department, and in the words of the city manager, he "walked into a buzz saw."

In the high-crime Chester County community, he took over a seriously understaffed department that was dealing with lawsuits alleging intra-departmental racism and sexism.

Laufer, 52, says he has been taking small but significant steps to right a department that spent most of 2012 without a permanent chief, was down several senior officers, and, at one point, had a sergeant as its highest-ranking officer.

For the department, "it's a culture change," he said. "I feel I've been able to bring a new focus."

Even his selection was an adventure.

He was chosen last year as a replacement for Julius Canale, who took early retirement in the spring along with other department personnel.

But at the City Council meeting held to vote on his appointment, only four of the seven council members showed up - and one voted against his appointment, citing budgetary concerns. Without a four-person majority on the council, Laufer could not be confirmed as chief, and he withdrew from consideration.

The next pick, Deputy Philadelphia Police Commissioner Stephen T. Johnson, was handily confirmed at a November meeting. But Johnson was forced to resign before setting foot in his office after he was found to have cancer.

Reenter Laufer, whom the city approached again.

"When one door closes, another opens," Laufer said. But, he said, it's rare for the same door to swing open twice.

Laufer spent 261/2 years with the state police and has lived in his West Grove house for nearly as long. He directed the training academy for several years and was the head of Lancaster County's Troop J during the 2006 shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines.

In his office, he keeps a framed photo of one of the funeral processions, a seemingly unending line of black buggies stretching through immaculate farmlands.

"It just puts everything in perspective," Laufer said.

Laufer said he was fond of Chester County and Coatesville in particular. Suggest that Chester County's only city is economically depressed or hopelessly crime-ridden, and he'll rattle off lists of revitalization projects or police initiatives to cut down on violent crime.

He acknowledges that the department is understaffed, down to 26 officers from a peak of 35. It also has been dealing with lawsuits alleging sexism and racism. But Laufer says he has seen no evidence of impropriety since he took over.

With a tight city budget and limited resources, Laufer has begun his tenure in Coatesville with small fixes: encouraging officers to apply for senior positions, investing in new uniforms for the force, hiring part-time officers for community-oriented bicycle patrols.

More than 200 applications poured in when the department announced it was hiring from 10 to 12 part-time officers at $22 an hour.

He is conscious, too, of the importance of improving the department's appearance in a town where frustration with the police runs high, a "stop snitching" culture is firmly in place, and violent crime is still a major problem.

"He's having to restore a different kind of confidence in the department," City Manager Kirby Hudson said. "He walked in to a buzz saw, and he's done an excellent job in restoring the faith of the public back to the police department."

Laufer has attended as many community events as possible in the last six months. "When you have a police department that has a face as opposed to just a uniform, the public feels a little bit more engaged," Hudson said.

Laufer also responds to routine police calls himself, directing traffic at accident scenes or providing backup after an assault on a police officer.

"We don't get called to the best events," he said. "We're not always going to make people happy. But you can always be professional."

The department's success and the city's success, he says, go hand in hand. A more visible police force, a reduction in violent crime, could help a struggling city get back on its feet.

"I don't get discouraged; I had my eyes wide open when I came into the city," Laufer said. "I was looking for a challenge: to come in and be immediately effective."