Oxford Police will undergo a shift in personnel after Lieutenant Lara Fening retired and the department wants to move toward finding more applicants for its positions with a more diverse pool.
Fening started working at the Miami University Police Department in 1993, three months after earning her degree in sociology from Miami. She began working with the Oxford Township Police Department in 1995 before joining the Oxford Police Department as a patrol officer in 1996. She didn’t intend to stay in Oxford for her whole career but doesn’t regret her choice.
Fening said she will miss the experiences on the patrol more than anything else. She was well-known for her problem-solving abilities and compassion for the community.
“I worked hard to integrate the police department with the community,” Fening said. “Whether I took someone to breakfast or someone ended up in the nursing home and I went and visited them, I just enjoy taking care of people.”
She said she was always excited to work for her community, no matter what erratic things came up during her shifts.
“Even if it ends up being a bad day, you still go in to serve the public and represent the department,” Fening said. “I liked the unpredictability of the job; you just handled what came your way.”
Two decades after she became a police officer, Fening was promoted to police sergeant. She was later promoted to lieutenant in 2016.
Police Chief John Jones said Fening made her biggest impact on the force while serving as a lieutenant. “She became our public information officer; then she began doing the recruiting, the community outreach – she was the face of our department,” Jones said.
Jones describes her significance to the department as tremendous.
“It shows through the growth of our social media following community policing,” Jones said.
However, the story doesn’t end here.
“Behind the scenes, she handled the police department’s business,” Jones said. “She put her whole career into this job, and we will miss her dearly.”
How do you replace such a significant figure in the police department? Fening spoke about the nationwide crisis of recruiting and retention during her retirement ceremony. Despite OPD’s work in recruiting – doing things like going to job fairs, participating in community outreach and encouraging officers to recruit – OPD still suffers from this same national problem.
Fening and Jones both described a drastically different scene when they first started their careers. “When you would go take a police test, you were one in two or three hundred,” Jones said. “Today, we might get 17 people who apply.”
Despite the low level of applicants each year, the OPD would like to hire a more diverse police force that resembles the population.
Fening said police officers may not want to start in a new department and lose seniority they already have. Jones said the politicization of the police, negative public opinion and negative media attention about police officers are all major roots of the issue.
OPD is taking steps to overcome this issue.
“The biggest thing is trying to make sure the officer is happy,” Jones said.
He said if a young officer is interested in a certain field like detective or SWAT work, they will work to send them to classes or training that develop them in those fields.
Jones and Fening said that more action is necessary. Jones said the department needs to become more progressive, for example offering signing and retention bonuses.
“We (leaders in the department) need to be better listeners and make changes that will make for a happier and more fulfilled workforce,” Fening said.
Currently, the department is conducting lieutenant assessments to determine who is going to fill Fening’s role. The position will be filled by a sergeant, and the sergeant position will be filled by a patrol officer, which then leaves OPD to find a new patrol officer to hire.
While the department is currently short-staffed, Jones asks the public to be patient while they try to restore the gap left in Fening’s absence. Jones assured the Oxford community that public safety will remain unaffected. Jones projects an announcement about the new lieutenant will be made by mid-March.
While Fening is ending her time as a police officer, she is starting a new role next week as the investigative coroner at the coroner’s office. She will supervise and assist with death investigations, serve as the office’s public information officer, and be the outreach liaison.
