SALISBURY — If someone told Patrick “P.J.” Smith 20 years ago that he would become a police officer, he wouldn’t believe it. Growing up in Salisbury, he had no desire to be a police officer, he wanted to be a business owner like his grandfather. In July, Smith was sworn in as the Salisbury chief of police, taking over after Chief Stokes retired. For Smith, there wasn’t a direct path to get to where he is now. He did not plan on setting out on doing all that he did to become chief of police when he started out as a patrol officer for the department. However, he felt like he had to do all that he accomplished.

“I will say, I was called to this profession,” Smith said.

Born in Greensboro, Smith moved to Salisbury when he was three months old. Mainly raised by a single mother, he moved around frequently, but his mom made sure he could stay in the same school system as his friends through it all. He graduated from South Rowan High School and soon began his 15-year career for Food Lion, so he could gain experience and open his own business.

In the early 2000s, certain incidents transpired that made him reflect on his life. After much thought and consideration, Smith joined the Salisbury Police Department. “For the first time in my life, I really had nobody to tell me no and I decided to apply for the police department. This is the only department I applied for and I got hired,” Smith said.

Before he was officially hired, he had to be sponsored and work for free. During this time he lived off his savings, but had the conviction to want to fight for the place that he grew up in and that has given so much back to him.

“I wanted to have more hand in events that were occurring, how things were handled, the direction the city was going into, I had good friends who were police officers, I was highly influenced by a retired lieutenant from this department that I did a couple ride alongs with him and my interest started growing,” Smith said. “This was my way of giving back to Salisbury. I wanted to be more of a part of the community and less of a part of the business aspect of things.”

Smith had expected to work for 25 years and then retire, but became more involved when he was named downtown liaison. In order to become a sergeant, Smith obtained his associate’s degree from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. When Smith’s oldest son passed away and he said one of the ways he coped was by furthering his education. He received his bachelor’s in criminal justice from Columbia College and will get his master’s in leadership with a concentration in human resource management from Pfeiffer University in December. When it came to his master’s degree, Smith sought out an opportunity to gain expertise in a field he was unfamiliar with that could bolster his understanding of what other local agencies do.

“Instead of being geared towards one thing, I wanted a broader outlook to where, as a police chief, I can understand what the public works director is doing or why the street department does that, or what human resources’ true role in an organization is,” Smith said.

As Smith studied, he was also coming into larger, more authoritative roles for the police department and realized he enjoyed it. Eventually, Smith was a captain when the chief of police position became available. Other officers wanted him to apply, but he didn’t think it was the right time and decided not to pursue it even though he did want to. His wife, Venice, was the one who reminded him that he was the only one who was preventing him from applying. After some deliberation, he finally put his name in for consideration.

“It was the toughest assessment process I’ve ever been through in any career in any promotion through out my entire work history since I started working at the age of 16,” Smith said.

In the end, it was worth it after he was chosen as the chief of police. When asked why he thought he was picked as the new chief, Smith was candid on what he provides Salisbury. “I understand the culture, I understand the department, but I like to think I was chosen because I was the most qualified…I stand by that because I do have visions which I presented during the assessment process,” Smith said. “I got the position because I was what the department needs now, what the community wanted now.”

Smith has clear objectives to address as chief. “I want to focus on retention, I want to focus on recruitment, I want the culture of this department to be that of a department that people want to work at, not just people who come to work at. Our best recruiters are our employees…I want to reduce the crime rate,” Smith said.

When Deputy Police Chief Brian Stallings gave Smith an evaluation while he was his superior, he was the first to explain to him the kind of influence he had on officers and how that can make them more efficient.

“He said, ‘You’re a jack of all trades and a master of nothing.’ I sat back and I looked at that. Is that good or bad? In the long run it ended up being good because what I’ve learned as far as leadership is…If I’m supervising a crime analyst, I don’t have to know exactly how and everything they do as far as the numbers. I have to know a little bit, but just enough to be able to do it, but I don’t have to know it to the expertise level that they do. As a supervisor I have to trust that they’re going to do the job that they’re hired for,” Smith said.

Stallings met Smith when they were both in investigations together. Stallings is over the moon that Smith is now chief of police. He said it was a job that Smith was inadvertently striving for since he joined the department and his defining attributes are the cornerstones for his most recent appointment as chief.

“He knows how to communicate, knows how to speak to people on their level, and he knows how to listen. Those are the things I think did him justice in his career,” Stallings said.

Whenever a sensitive case had to be investigated, Stallings knew Smith would be the ideal officer to handle it with the upmost care and attention.

“If I ever had a case that was a difficult case, and when I mean by difficult being child cases, that’s a difficult case for any law enforcement to work. It takes a special person to do…I could give it to P.J. because I knew he could take care of it. Would take the child’s thought process in mind, he would be empathetic, that he would handle it in the right way, and do things the right way,” Stallings said.

Smith has been instrumental in implementing Salisbury’s crime analytics program and its citywide camera project so that the department can usher in a different way of examining crime. “When you first develop a crime analytics program, it’s not going to tell you anything you don’t already know,” Smith said. “It goes beyond locating the ‘where,’ but we start looking at the ‘why.’ We delve deeper into the issue to try and create a long term solution.”

Smith wants to build a “steady” trend of safety for Salisbury, confront quality of life issues, all while having the department be as transparent as possible. He says more officers should be coming out of training soon and will become full-time employees.

Over a month into being chief, it’s still a “surreal feeling” for Smith. He’s not used to people calling him “Chief” instead of P.J., but he’s trying to overcome that. Smith is grateful that as a police officer, he could still be a “husband and a father” for his family. He emphasizes that he could not have done it without the support of those closest to him. He knows the real work begins now and is putting it upon himself to make sure Salisbury picked the right person for chief.

“I hope we can have this interview two years from now and it’s, ‘How do you feel about these great accomplishments that you’ve achieved?’ Let’s talk again in 2025,” Smith said.