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Date: 9/13/2022
BELCHERTOWN – If you’d like to chat with the town’s new Police Chief Kevin Pacunas, you’ll get your chance during the upcoming Belchertown Fair. Besides walking the fairgrounds “most of the weekend” of Sept. 23 to 25, Pacunas will host a coffee hour on Sept. 24.
“I’ll be in the old Town Hall on Saturday from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., I’ll have my own space for anybody who wants to meet with me or have a coffee with me,” Pacunas told Reminder Publishing.
It’s just the kind of community engagement opportunity that the 40-year Belchertown resident sees as crucial for his hometown Police Department.
“Getting out there [in the community], hearing what their issues are, us getting to know them, them getting to know us, building a trust … that’s what I’m all about and that’s what our department is all about,” Pacunas, who was appointed chief by the Select Board on Aug. 16, said.
Putting the community first
Pacunas, who joined the Belchertown Police Department in 1996 said community policing became his “niche” when he accepted the role of the department’s DARE officer.
“No one in the department wanted to be the DARE officer and the chief asked me, and I said, ‘Yes’ and it was the best decision I ever made,” Pacunas shared.
“It wasn’t so much teaching the kids not to try drugs or use drugs it was the relationships being built. They got to know me, I got to know them. Back then I was Officer Kevin,” Pacunas said. “It’s been 15 years since the last [DARE] class and I’ll be in the CVS, or the supermarket and I’ll hear ‘Hi Officer Kevin!’ It doesn’t matter if I’m a sergeant or the chief, that’s how they know me and that’s how I know who was talking to me [was] a former student.”
Those eight years in the schools “kind of propelled me into the community policing mindset, if you will,” Pacunas said, explaining that when you first become a police officer “you think you have to go and arrest everyone, and write everyone a ticket – the thinking is very black and white.
“But as you get to know people you think, ‘How can I help someone?” he said, ‘It’s not just ‘ I have to arrest people or write them a ticket’ – you take the black and white stuff out.”
As chief, he wants that helping mindset to go out with his officers when they respond to calls.
“It’s something that should be done every day,” Pacunas said of community policing, giving an example of a call to the home of someone who lives alone and is having an issue with something like their water. “It may be something we can help with, or not - maybe it’s as simple as turning the water off or helping them find someone to call. That may be the only experience they have with the police that year, or in several years” and Pacunas wants his officers to do what they can to make the experience a positive one.
Goals as the new chief
Pacunas said in addition to promoting community policing, working to ensure Belchertown’s Police Department is prepared to maintain accredited status with the state of Massachusetts is his major focus.
“Our three-year accreditation expires next spring and our focus right now is to be in a good position to be recertified,” Pacunas said. “There will be an assessor in the spring who goes through all our policies and our building – our lock-up, sally port, booking area – to see if we are up to standards. that’s my number one priority right now.”
To help ensure the accreditation goes smoothly, Pacunas petitioned the Select Board to shift some staffing assignments, reducing the number of lieutenant positions from two to one, and increasing the number of sergeant positions from four to five, with the fifth sergeant position being an accreditations officer. The adjustment was accepted at the Aug. 26 meeting, with Select Board member Ron Aponte pointing out that staffing could be reviewed in a year or two to reinstate the second lieutenant position.
Regarding staffing, ensuring his department has a full complement of officers is another of Pacunas’ s immediate goals
“We’re budgeted for 23 positions and right now we have 21 positions filled,” Pacunas said, adding “It’s a challenge to find diversified, qualified candidates, people who want to be police officers” in today’s society. He also noted the issue of a months-long long training period, including placement and completion of the police academy and field experience – required after any new candidate is hired.
Despite the reduced staff, Pacunas said he feels his department is strong. “We have a good system in place and good officers … most of our officers live in Belchertown so I don’t anticipate any major changes,” he said.
Serving his hometown
Pacunas, who graduated from what was then Belchertown’s junior-senior high school in 1986, said he didn’t envision a career in law enforcement when he accepted his diploma. “I went to AIC (American International College) on a baseball scholarship and took a major unrelated to criminal justice,” Pacunas shared. After “a couple of years” of college, he left and began working full time. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he admitted, but that changed when he began talking with some friends who went into law enforcement. “It piqued my interest,” Pacunas said. “I went and did a ride-along with an officer from [the Belchertown] department and I was hooked.
“I definitely wanted to work in Belchertown, that’s where I wanted to be as far as police work goes,” he added.
Joining the force in 1996, he was promoted to sergeant with the Belchertown Police Department in 2003, and lieutenant in 2017. During that time Pacunas earned a Bachelor of Science in law enforcement from Western New England University, graduating in 2008. Prior to being selected for the position of chief, he completed a master’s in criminal justice at Westfield State University, graduating in 2020.