Two of Juneau’s men in blue were promoted to top ranks in the Department.
Ed Mercer is the new Deputy Chief of Juneau Police while Scott Erickson is now a Lieutenant in charge of the Department’s patrol division.
Police Chief Bryce Johnson said during a very brief ceremony at the Department on Wednesday afternoon that he briefly considered a national search to fill the formerly vacant position of Assistant Chief. But he discovered that it had been nearly fifteen years since there was an internal promotion to assistant or deputy chief.
Mercer, who grew up in Sitka and has worked as an officer for over twenty years, will be in charge of Operations at the Department.
I think that the only difference — that is going to be kind of significant — is that I’m going to be overseeing the Dispatch Center for all operations as well. But, as (for) moving up in the rank, there comes a lot more responsibility and a variety of different challenges. So, at this time, I’m pretty excited about the challenges to come.”
Mercer will also oversee patrol, investigations, special operations, and the community service unit that does parking enforcement and responds to garbage and bear issues.
Erickson has worked for JPD for over 17-years and most recently headed up criminal investigations.
The group that I supervise is much bigger than the former group I had. I had eight, ten detectives that I dealt with. I’m moving now to a division that’s going to have over thirty people.”
He says just because he’s now head of the patrol division, doesn’t mean that he won’t be pulling any more graveyard patrol shifts.
That’s part of the patrol thing.”
The promotions are part of Chief Bryce Johnson’s efforts to streamline communications within the department. An old Assistant Chief position and a Captain position were combined, and a new Lieutenant position was created to help with administrative duties and public outreach.
Mercer’s wife Kelly and Erickson’s daughter Danielle pinned on their new badges during the ceremony.
