As cars drive by the office window of Wadesboro's new police chief, Janie Shutz, she can tell you without even looking through the blinds whether or not that vehicle was speeding. If a Wadesboro citizen calls for an officer, the chief just might show up, either as backup or to handle the call herself.

Honed law enforcement skills such as these are the result of Shutz's years of education and experience.

However, her education and experience are not the first things that she most wants local citizens to know about her. "The first thing I always want people to know is that my faith and family are way before my job," she said. "I'm a mother and a wife first."

The mom to six children moved to Wadesboro at the beginning of March— without her husband of almost 30 years, who's a large animal veterinarian in the western part of the state. Once the last of the children graduate high school over the next two years, he will join her in Anson County. Until then, Shutz splits her time between an apartment a few blocks from the police station and her family's home in Morganton.

A 'true blue' cop

Although her family are important to her, her law enforcement career clearly runs a close second.

"I would say that certain people are 'true blue' in nature, as a cop, and I've been true blue since I started as a cop in 1988," Shutz said.

She began her law enforcement career in Wisconsin, before moving to North Carolina in 1994 and entering the Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) program at Western Piedmont Community College. "I graduated No. 1 in my class and No. 1 on the state exam for certification," she announced proudly.

At that point, she was offered two jobs— one with Morganton Public Safety and another with the Marion P.D. Since the family was living in McDowell County, where Marion is the county seat, she chose to go with the Marion P.D.

Although she enjoyed the experience, Shutz said "my background has always been to do more." She graduated from Michigan State University with a criminal justice and political science degree, before going on to law school. "I would've finished law school, if my husband had not taken a job in Wisconsin," she recalled. "I had to make a choice; do I finish law school or do I follow him?" Since the couple had a 4-month-old baby at the time, she decided to go with her husband to Wisconsin. "I always thought I'd go back and finish law school but I never did," she said. "I started thinking, 'what can I do if I don't do law?' And that's when policing came up."

Since then, education has been at the forefront of Shutz's career. She's close to getting her master's in education through Western Carolina University, she said, "but I've put that on the back burner until I can sort of do the job here that I want to do here."

Shutz has served as director of law enforcement training for Isothermal Community College in Rutherford County, a drug enforcement agent for the Department of Revenue, covering 13 counties, and as a detective sergeant at the Lake Lure P.D., where she wrote the department's field training program for new officers. She then became a a full-time instructor with the N.C. Department of Justice's N.C. Justice Academy, authoring the block for the state in sexual assault investigations and revising the domestic violence block that's used statewide by all law enforcement officers.

A hands-on chief

While she enjoyed the teaching part of her job, Shutz has had the dream for the past four or five years, she said, to become a police chief. "I've worked under some very good police chiefs. I've worked under some chiefs that I would say probably could've used some improvement, if I could put it like that," she said. "I think what I've brought here to Wadesboro is the best of both. I've learned a lot from the good but I also learned some from the chiefs that I may not have thought handled everything appropriately."

Shutz calls herself "a hands-on chief." In fact, since she started on March 1, she's already begun a program in which she will ride along with every Wadesboro officer at some point. "It allows them to see me as a person, first of all, and I think that's going to allow for our growth."

Through her ride-alongs, however, Shutz has seen "what [the] officers are up against."

"I can honestly say that we have some issues that need to be addressed fairly soon, mainly taking care of the officers and their safety, and the safety of the citizens that they have to deal with," she admitted. "I have certain things I want to do right off the bat, and it all concerns officer safety."

However, she's quick to point out that so far, her impression of the town is that it's "top-notch."

"There's a lot of good people here," she said. "Every town has something they need to work on. Does Wadesboro have problem areas? Certainly, but I don't think it's any

different from any other agency I've been working with."

Shutz stressed that she wants to work with the community to help try to solve the town's problems. She hopes to start a community policing/community watch group, as soon as possible.

"I don't have the personnel to go to all the difficult areas and concentrate one on one," she said. "It's going to involve business leaders, church leaders, school leaders, the county commissioners, the town council here and certainly our department. But I think when we come together as a group... we'll come up with possible solutions. I don't think we can solve it all but the idea of bonding together, saying it's not just the police department's problem, it's not a certain part of the city's problem, it's gonna be our problem together."

And as for traffic stops— "I'm very, very big on traffic enforcement. I've noticed here that we seem to have a lot of people that have forgotten common rules of the road."

She plans to have her officers step up traffic law enforcement and eventually, hopes to have a radar in each patrol car. "I've gotta keep it safe for pedestrians; I've got to keep it safe for other drivers," she said.

Shutz also plans to be out in the community as much as possible— in uniform, once she receives the one she ordered several weeks ago. She's even introduced herself to the cashiers at Wal-Mart, in the grocery store, wherever she sees people out and about.

"I will be out in the community a lot more than some people might think."