ROCKLAND, Maine — Since the time Chris Young was working part time in college for the Rockport Police Department and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, he had his eyes set on the neighboring police department in Rockland.
“You would hear the radio frequencies for other departments and Rockland was just so busy,” Young said. “[The officers] were so professional and so squared away. It was the department that I wanted to work for.”
Now, about 23 years after joining the ranks of the Rockland Police Department as a patrol officer, Young has been named chief of the 17-officer department.
Young most recently served as the department’s deputy chief under Bruce Boucher, but has been serving as interim chief following Boucher’s retirement last month. The Rockland City Council unanimously confirmed Young as chief last week.
While Young never saw himself becoming a police chief, he has always pictured himself in law enforcement, largely thanks to the example his father set during his own career with the Maine State Police.
“I saw how proud he was and the dignity that he carried himself with, and that immediately impressed me,” Young said.
The respect his father garnered from the community he served as a state trooper set an example for how Young wanted to be seen when he became an officer. Young’s father died three years after Young joined the Rockland Police Department, and Young said people still remind him of just why his father was so respected.
“He wasn’t great because of the uniform, it was because of the way he treated people,” Young said.
Young is a native of Knox County, attending Camden schools and living in the Camden-Rockport area for most of his life.
While he never set out to be chief, he always wanted to serve as a patrol sergeant.
“What I really wanted was to have my shift and just go out and take care of the problems for the community and have a good group of people and lead them,” he said.
Patrol sergeant is the one position he’s never held with the department. Instead he spent 14 years as a detective.
As chief, Young said he wants to focus on how Rockland addresses the opioid epidemic. During the past two years, the department has changed the way it handles interactions with people who are struggling with addiction by attempting to get them access to help if possible.
“We need to be able to meet these people on the streets when they’re suffering and provide them resources where we can get them help,” Young said. “These aren’t bad people. These are people that are struggling and they’re trying to feed an addiction.”
Within the department, Young said he hopes to build off the example in leadership that Boucher set over the past decade.
“I have an incredible group of men and women that come to work with me every day,” Young said. “Without them and their integrity and character and hard work, we wouldn’t be the department we are.”
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