Maricopa’s new Police Chief Mark Goodman will begin his term on Monday morning, January 23.

He came to Maricopa from Pasadena, California and spent 28 years with the police, the fourth largest law enforcement agency in the Los Angeles area.

InMaricopa was granted an exclusive interview with 52-year-old Goodman for insight into his background, policing philosophy and early impressions of Maricopa.

Goodman and his wife of 27 years, Victoria, have three daughters. Kaitlyn, 23 years old. Krista, 20 years old.

Part 1 of our interview with the new police chief. Part 2 takes place Monday night.

In Maricopa: Excited to come to Maricopa?

Chief Goodman: i am very excited. I am going to Phoenix tomorrow (Saturday) and my wife and I are in the process of purchasing a home in town. I hope to be a full-fledged Maricopa resident by mid-February.

In Maricopa: Please tell us a little bit about your own background.

Chief Mark Goodman: I was born and raised in a small town called San Gabriel, California. A suburb of Los Angeles. My father was a police officer with the San Gabriel Police Department. I grew up in police stations all over the place. I was exposed to police work pretty early on. I always viewed my father and the people he worked with, his colleagues, as something of a hero in our community. rice field.

Back then, when I was young, who are the people you look up to, who are your heroes? I think most people are celebrities, athletes or something like that. And I always said that my father was my hero and the people he worked with were heroes. I respect him as someone I want to imitate. That’s when I became interested in police work.

After high school, he moved to Cal State-Los Angeles, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. So I was pretty committed to being a police officer.

In Maricopa: Tell us about your time in Pasadena PD.

a good man: In 1994, I applied to the Pasadena Police Department. You may have heard of it. We host this little event every year called the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Games. The town has a small stadium called the Rose Bowl. I was very lucky to be hired by the Pasadena PD. Many opportunities have opened up in law enforcement.

What will happen if I get a job at the police station? LA County has four large police departments. LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department). The LA Sheriff’s Department, Long Beach Police Department is his third largest agency in LA County and Pasadena is her fourth largest agency.

Pasadena had everything a young officer could want, so I was really lucky to be hired there. They had all kinds of professional missions: air support, SWAT, dogs, detectives, drugs. The world was wide open to me. So I spent the next 20 or so years in that organization working my way up the ranks.I spent his 28 years working in all departments of the police department and had a lot of experience in all kinds of different aspects of law enforcement. I’ve been piling up.

I’ve been a patrol, a detective, been on a special weapons team, worked for street-level gangs and drug syndicates, worked for the Department of Transportation, and worked as a member of the Air Support Force for almost five years. in internal affairs. As I moved up the ranks, I had many different opportunities. The variety of opportunities allowed me to look at police work through different lenses and gain insight into the operational and administrative aspects of law enforcement. I had great teachers and mentors who guided me. As a result, I became the Chief of Police in Maricopa.

I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to join Maricopa and have the opportunity to move everything forward and be part of a great team there.

In Maricopa: Please tell us about your connection with Arizona. What drew you here and to Maricopa?

a good man: It’s an interesting trip. All three daughters attended Grand Her Canyon College in Phoenix. So my oldest, Courtney, attended the Grand Canyon on an ROTC scholarship. She is currently a Lieutenant in the United States Army and serves as a nurse in the Army Nurses Corps.

We visited quite often when our middle daughter Caitlin went to GCU and eventually decided that our youngest daughter Christa also wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. So, as Caitlin was preparing for her graduation, I asked her about her plans. Was she going back to California? And she told us that she likes Arizona, that she’s staying here, getting an apartment, and that she’s going to do “grown ups.”

My wife said my youngest was getting ready to go to GCU. Consider the possibility of buying a home in Phoenix close to college? ” We bought a house in Phoenix. That’s kind of the first story I came to Maricopa.

As time went on, of course we missed our daughters. After working her 26 or her 27 years in Pasadena, my wife said, “Why don’t you look for a job in Arizona?” She looked around, saw Maricopa’s post, and contacted Maricopa. The more research I did, the more I could identify with this city. I realized that this is a great opportunity. Police chief job here. I was lucky enough to get that job.

This is exactly what I was looking for an opportunity to bring my love of law enforcement and my love of family into the same place.

In Maricopa: What are the similarities and differences between police in Pasadena and Maricopa?

a good man: There are 234 sworn officers in Pasadena and, combined with professional staff, Pasadena PD has approximately 375 employees. Obviously Maricopa has a much smaller staff. But the size of the staff has to be commensurate with the services we provide and the population, right? Pasadena has a population of about 140,000.

In Maricopa: Are the types of crime the same in both cities?

a good man: Property crime is rampant everywhere you go. Luckily, violent crime here is far, far, far less compared to the Los Angeles area.

In Maricopa: Do you think there is value in having police officers wear body cameras? If so, will you enforce MPD’s policy requiring officers to do so? If so, how?

a good man: Body cameras are very important. Obviously they can be used to refute complaints against officers. That is very easily accomplished through body-worn camera footage. And we actually record hundreds of hours of data from body-worn cameras every day. One of my visions is to use body-worn camera footage in the same way professional sports teams use game film. They all watch game films and have access to thousands of hours of game films. We need to use that data to improve ourselves.

In Maricopa: How are the police in Maricopa, Arizona different from those in Pasadena, California?

a good man: Clearly, Maricopa is a growing community. It is different in that the city leaders are aiming for the growth of the city. As such, city police must scale public safety accordingly. Pasadena is established and developed. Even when I was a new officer in Pasadena in his 1994, the city was mostly built. Maricopa is not built. It has development potential for both residential and commercial use. This is a team that will use my experience in Pasadena from a law enforcement and public safety perspective to grow the city and make sure we are providing the right level of public safety for those who come here. This is a great opportunity to become part of the Live at Maricopa, work play.

I am a firm believer that people choose where they live, work, and decide to establish a business, at least in part, with safety in mind. We want to provide peace of mind for community members and businesses. Doing so will ensure your family is safe, your business is safe, and you can thrive in all aspects of life in Maricopa. We want to make sure that’s what we tell people who live in town and are visiting and starting businesses in town.

I see police stations as an integral part of economic development. We want to make sure the police department supports the city’s overall mission and provides a very high sense of public safety.

In Maricopa: What are your top priorities for Monday? First month? Year?

a good man: My number one priority is to start building relationships. We firmly believe that the next iteration of policing will be built around relationships. I would like to start building relationships not only with my team members, but with those around me as soon as possible. I want to build relationships, but I also want to build relationships with executive teams, members of the police department, members of the community, and the business community.

I want to be visible and accessible. I want people to know that they can call me and talk to me about any issues that may be on their mind. I want to learn about their culture and how they do business. I want to know their “why”.

One of the reasons that brought me to Maricopa was “Find your own reasons.” This is part of what we say at Maricopa, ‘Find the reason’. I want every subordinate in the police department to find their own reasons, to find their personal reasons. We guarantee that we are contributing to society.

In part two tomorrow, Goodman discusses his police philosophy, long-term goals for the department, and building relationships within the community and with the news media.