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Officers Focus on Relationships with Tenants In May of 1991, the Florence Police Department and Florence Housing Authority entered into an agreement together to provide more needed law enforcement in the areas owned and managed by the Authority. Ken Davis, Jeremy Keeton, and Dwight Philpot are the three full-time, academy-trained police officers who together work 16 hours a day, seven days a week out of two offices each located in the housing communities -- one in Cherry Hill Homes, another in Carver Homes. The officers are responsible for 659 units and 1321 individuals. The officers handle a wide range of responsibilities including meeting with investigators, responding to calls for assistance in public housing, writing reports on criminal activity, maintaining surveillance of gang and drug activity, conducting background investigations on potential residents, patrolling on foot, motor scooters, and police cars, attending gang recognition seminars, attending monthly firearm training, reporting to the Housing Authority Director weekly, holding meetings with problem tenants, assisting in tenant evictions, and maintaining an "open door" policy so tenants can have easy access to officers. Officer Davis said the job is what he considers community based policing. "We have that open door policy and tenants know they can come in this office anytime, for anything," he said. "We've learned how to be psychologists around here, and not just police officers." The officer-goal is to focus on the development of relationships with residents by showing concern for their status and encouraging them to accept responsibility for solving their own individual problems in addition to helping maintain the overall quality of life in the housing communities. On a weekly basis, the officers are given the names of all new residents to make personal contact with. For more information, contact the officers at (256) 760-4712. Top of Page