Caleb Suggs

Hartselle Enquirer

This week’s a day in the life looks at the Chief of Police for the Hartselle Police Department Ron Puckett.

Puckett has been chief of police in Hartselle for over a decade. After graduating from Athens State University in 1987, Puckett entered police work and got a job at the Juvenile Probation office in Decatur where he worked for two years. He then took a job with the Hartselle Police Department in 1989 and has been here ever since. He started in patrol before going into Investigator, Captain and then Chief in 2005. Puckett runs a department that has around 29 employees split between different divisions, which include the patrol, criminal investigation, and the special services division. There are 20 on the road in the patrol division, 4 in the investigator division and 2 in the special services division to go along with the Captain and Chief.

As Chief of the police department, Puckett is responsible for the upkeep of the department. Under Puckett, Hartselle has been very clean of crime compared to other bigger cities. “Hartselle is a fairly quite city, which is not a bad thing.” Puckett said. “We’ve been very blessed to don’t have a lot of serious crimes like shootings, murders and robberies.” Since 2012, Hartselle has had just zero homicides, eight rapes and nine robberies. Most of the crimes in the city of Hartselle come from theft. “That’s great for us a citizens.” Puckett said. “We don’t have to worry about those kind of crimes every day like the ones that happen in Huntsville.”

As chief, Puckett is responsible for working with the departments budget which generally entails working with the operating expenses such as uniforms, training, cost of housing prisoners, new cars and so on. Puckett also spends time working with the Mayor and the city council. “the Mayor is my direct boss.” Puckett said. “If they decide that they would like a certain neighborhood patrolled more then I make sure it does.”

When he is not working for the police, Puckett still spends time working in the community. Puckett is part of the Kiwanis club, which does a lot to raise money for kids. “We do a lot of work to raise money.” Puckett said. “And then we usually that money in scholarships every year.” Puckett is also active in ministry work as he goes on mission trips to several areas in need.