MOPD hires new assistant chief
By Steve Herring
Published in News on April 15, 2015 1:46 PM
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Linda Tyson, assistant Mount Olive police chief
MOUNT OLIVE -- Linda Tyson has known since she was a child that she wanted to be a law enforcement officer.
"Being a woman police officer, you didn't see a lot of them back then," she said. "Then a female of color, hardly none, and I wanted to make a difference.
"I was 4 feet 11, 96 pounds when I went into law enforcement. I was determined that anybody can do the job. If they are headstrong, they can do anything. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I work for the people. That is the best thing about the job."
Where she is now is serving as the Mount Olive Police Department's first female captain and assistant chief.
Mrs. Tyson, 49, is a former Duplin County Sheriff's Office detective with 22 years of law enforcement service.
It was that experience and hardheadedness that prompted Interim Chief of Police Tommy Brown to ask Mrs. Tyson if she would be interested in the job.
Brown, who has known Mrs. Tyson for 22 years, said he went straight to Mrs. Tyson to see if she would be interested in being the second in command at the department.
They met while he was working at the Duplin County Sheriff's Office.
"I knew her dependability," he said. "I knew her work ethic. I knew her work history, and I just knew she would be a good fit here.
"Right now she is our captain/assistant chief. She will be filling supervisory duties over patrol and investigations as well. Basically she is the right-hand lady of the police department. Basically she is doing the same thing that she will be doing when we get the paperwork in."
When the department hires someone in a law enforcement capacity, it had to send paperwork to what is called Training and Standards, Brown said.
"They do their, for the lack of a better phrase, background investigation they have to do to fulfill their requirements to ensure the person is qualified to be sworn in as an officer which of course obviously she is," he said.
How quick the turnaround depends on the number of applications it has, Brown said.
However, not having the paperwork just yet will not be an issue and Mrs. Tyson will be sworn in as soon as her paperwork clears, he said.
"I am excited as far as the investigative experience that she brings as well," Brown said. "Not a lot of folks who have her level of experience would have been willing to leave an agency they have been with for 20 years and say, 'Hey, I am going to try something new.'
"She is definitely up to the challenge and she is very headstrong. Any task required of her she is going to do 110 percent. I knew that even before she came."
A Duplin County native who grew up near Kenansville, Mrs. Tyson is a 1984 graduate of James Kenan High School where her husband, James, is a school resource officer.
They have a daughter, Tamara, who is a senior there.
After high school Mrs. Tyson went on to attend the criminal justice program at James Sprunt Community College where then Sheriff George Garner taught.
"Every time he did a class, which I am always smiling, she used to call me a 'little ole bitty thing,'" she said. "I have always wanted to go into law enforcement. So while taking classes at James Sprunt under him, he offered me the opportunity to volunteer at the Sheriff's Office -- to go and see what it was like."
On the weekends she would sit with the jailers and dispatchers.
In 1993 Garner offered her a part-time position. She was a jailer/dispatcher. She even helped with the kitchen personnel.
"I did that until 1994 when he offered me the opportunity to go to Basic Law Enforcement Training (at James Sprunt Community College) to become a sworn officer," she said. "He had it set up so we could work during the daytime, our 12-hour shifts, then school at night.
"I went to school for nine months working 12-hour shifts during the daytime. It was worth every bit of it. I was strongheaded back then. I was determined because I had told him (Garner) that if he even gave me just one opportunity to go Basic Law Enforcement, I knew that there was nothing that would cause me to quit."
She was sworn in as a deputy in 1994.
Mrs. Tyson was a school resource officer for nearly seven years, a narcotics officer for about a year and a half, worked as a bailiff and taught DARE.
For the last 10 to 11 years she has worked in investigations.
"The few years I have basically just been working major crimes -- child abuse, sex abuse, homicides -- any crimes against a person, shootings," she said. "That was under Blake Wallace as sheriff. He has been an awesome sheriff. I am a forensic child interviewer. I have been to homicide investigations (program). I am the first female hostage negotiator for Duplin County.
"I just want to make a difference to the people of Mount Olive. People have the right to be safe in their homes. Children have the right to be safe at a park. The community has a right to be safe in their town. We as law enforcement officers need citizens' help as much as they need ours. I hope that we all can come together on one accord and build a better town of Mount Olive."