New challenge

Kacky Finnell's 23 year career as a Lincoln police officer winds up today. She has an offer in the private sector that's too good to refuse, and has decided to cash it in a little early. It's been a fine tour of duty, but she's now moving on to start a second career. Although I'm going to miss her wicked sense of humor, she has a great opportunity and I wish her the best.

For the past several years, Kacky has been working in our Management Services Unit, as our public information officer. She is in charge of media relations. She comes in early to get a jump on the overnight activity, prepares the reports and printouts, then runs a daily 8:45 a.m. media briefing. The rest of the day is filled with phone calls, questions, and requests from the news organizations. She chases down statistics, lines up interviews, sends out public record mug shots and criminal histories, and updates the police news release RSS feed.

That's just part of her job, though. She also manages our public web site, produces our Annual Reports, and coordinates the updating our our General Orders and Resource Manual. In addition, she's one of three people who work part-time to ensure we are complying with accreditation standards, and maintaining suitable proof of compliance to smooth our next reaccreditation cycle.

She's represented the police department superbly. Kacky can take a healthy amount of the credit for our excellent media relations, and for polishing our public image with print and on-line publication. Rookies may not realize it, but she is a rock solid street cop. I was always impressed with her knack for being in the thick of things, her initiative, her reports, and her savvy. She's also a dead eye shot, with plenty of regional and national pistol competition hardware to prove it.

Before she caught the eye of an expanding firm looking for talent, Kacky was headed back to a street assignment, by her own choice--she missed life outside the bubble. Rumor had it that in January she was going to back onto the Southwest Team, her old stomping ground. It's too bad the denizens of A Beat won't be seeing her in uniform. Her new employer's facility is on A Beat, though, so troublemakers better not underestimate that nice red-headed mom in the SUV.