Five things to know about Fayetteville's new police chief
Kemberle Braden will take over command of the Fayetteville Police Department from retired Chief Gina Hawkins on Feb. 1. Here are five facts about Fayetteville’s next top cop.
He's a longtime Fayetteville resident.
Braden has lived in Fayetteville for 45 years and said his family came to the area so his father could serve as a member of the Special Forces at Fort Bragg.
“To me, this is what I know to be home,” he said at a Dec. 13 public forum.
Braden’s wife, Elizabeth, is a small business owner in Fayetteville. The couple shares two adult children, a son who lives in Charlotte and works as an engineer and a daughter who attends school and owns a small business in the Greensboro area, Braden said.
He's had a lengthy career in law enforcement.
Braden first joined the Fayetteville Police Department in 1996, initially working as a patrol officer on Murchison Road, he said. Since then, he’s advanced in the ranks, serving as a sergeant, lieutenant, captain and major before being promoted in May to assistant chief of police, overseeing the Field Operations Bureau, according to a news release from the city.
Braden was named Officer of the Year in 2002, the release said.
He was seriously injured in the line of duty.
Braden was shot five times March 20, 2002, while searching a house suspected of drug activity, according to previous coverage from the Observer. Hospitalized for his injuries, he considered leaving the force, but his father told him he couldn’t quit from a hospital bed, Braden said at the forum.
"I think he knew that I needed some time to figure things out," Braden said.
The experience transformed what had been a fun job into something far more serious, he said.
“I took a hard look at the people that helped me out and investigated that thing, and to me, the paradigm shift was, if I go back and I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it my way,” he said. “We’re going to have better intel before we hit a house. We’re going to have better training, we’re going to have better tactics, we’re going to have better equipment. And I stuck to that throughout my career.”
His selection is historic for Fayetteville.
Braden is Fayetteville’s first police chief of Asian descent, marking another first for Fayetteville — former Chief Gina Hawkins was Fayetteville’s first minority chief and first female chief.
He comes from a law enforcement family.
Braden said that his father served as chief of police in his hometown of Providence, Kentucky, beginning in Braden’s senior year of high school. Braden’s brother later became a Kentucky state police officer and now serves as sheriff in Webster County, Kentucky.
Braden will be officially installed as police chief Friday at 4 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, according to a news release from the city.
Public safety reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville's next top cop: Five things to know about Kemberle Braden
