POLICE CHIEF EMPHASIZES CONNECTING WITH CHILDREN

Stow's Tilton, Who Will Retire Soon, Sees Long-Term Value In Classroom
Visits

STOW: A set of handcuffs sits on Stow Police Chief Robert Tilton's
desk, just out of reach of his right hand.

Tilton, who recently announced that he is retiring after 16 years as
the city's police chief, said he is proud that he rarely has had to
use those cuffs on bad guys.

Maybe the best part of his job, he said, was taking the handcuffs, or
a bulletproof vest, or another instrument of the job into the city's
schools and showing them to the students.

"A lot of what I've preached about on this job has to do with the
kids," Tilton said.

"I can go in there and talk forever about being a cop. But with
grade-school kids, it's got to be hands-on stuff. They want something
they can take hold of to see how it works and how it's used."

One of the goals that Tilton said he discussed with city officials
when he was named chief in 1985 was achieved years ago.

Tilton said a Stow police officer is assigned to every school in the
community.

And whenever he has been asked, Tilton said, he has visited the
classrooms himself, telling and showing students how an officer uses
handcuffs, or a police radio, or a police car computer.

Thinking back on a law enforcement career that has spanned four
decades, Tilton said his classroom visits may have been his most
rewarding time on the job.

"He really identifies with young people," former Stow Mayor Donald
Coughlin said.

Tilton was largely responsible, Coughlin said, for the inception and
growth of the Police Department's DARE program, a drug and violence
resistance program taught in the schools by police officers.

In Stow, the DARE program began in the early 1990s.

"It helped bring the city as a governmental unit and the school
system closer together as a working unit, which wasn't necessarily the
case before the program began," Coughlin said.

Ron Gauthier, a retired police lieutenant who worked under six Stow
police chiefs, said Tilton was one of the best because he was a
"tremendous idea person."

"You'd walk down a hallway with him, and he would be talking about
all kinds of things that could have been done or could be done,"
Gauthier said.

In the late 1980s, for example, Gauthier recalled, Tilton used part of
the department's budget to buy child-safety seats and to put one in
every patrol car.

"He couldn't understand why officers would stop someone and issue a
citation for not having their child in a safety seat, then let them
drive away without one," Gauthier said.

After the department bought the safety seats, Gauthier said, those who
were ticketed for the violation would be given a seat to use until the
violator was able to buy one.

Tilton, 55, said he became committed to reaching out to children
because of the social changes that he experienced since his first job
on the Chester Township police force in 1970.

"Traditionally, we have been viewed as the boogeyman, or the
enforcer, or whatever you want to call it," Tilton said. "We've
tried to change that relationship here.

"Respect and order, and all the things police officers try to put
forth, can't be reinforced until the kids start understanding that
there are individuals who care, who will be there and who will talk to
them when they need them most."

Tilton said he rarely has worn his uniform -- for a
reason.

He said one of his goals as chief was to project to the officers under
him -- the number has increased from 26 full-time officers when he
started to 37 today -- that force is one of the worst ways to do the
job.

"I think the officers here have learned that the most important
weapon they carry is their mouth. Sometimes it takes people a long
time to realize that the mouth and the brain are very important
weapons, and if you use them properly, you don't have to use anything
else."

Tilton's last day on the job, he said, will be Jan.
25.

He has not meticulously plotted his retirement.

"Everybody's told me about retirement, but it's kind of like a book I
need to read myself," he said. "I don't know where it's going to
start, and I don't know where it's going to end."

Something he might pursue, he said, would expand on his outside
consulting work with the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.

He works with the organization on promotional assessments for
departments evaluating officers for command positions.

"I get great enjoyment out of that because it means I have to
maintain my own skill levels as a police officer," Tilton said.

Another interest he might pursue, he said, is as a referee in the
local girls community basketball leagues. The chief said he has grown
to love the sport from the participation of his 11-year-old daughter,
Bree, in area leagues.