Matthew Smith was chosen to take over as the city's chief of police. (Kaelyn Cassidy/Columbia County Spotlight)

When Matthew Smith applied to be the next St. Helens chief of police, he told his fellow officers that he wouldn’t take the job without their blessing.

Competing with two other candidates for the spot, Smith appealed to the police union directly and told its members he was ready to withdraw his application if he didn’t have the union’s approval.

“I said, ‘If I don’t have your support and I don’t have your endorsement, I’m going to withdraw my application and not do this, because I have no business being your chief,’” Smith said.

In his time spent with the St. Helens Police Department, Smith has seen how effective those officers can be and the results they can deliver. They’re the reason he came to St. Helens instead of accepting an offer from the Hillsboro Police Department, and the work the department has accomplished as a team has amounted to some of the most fulfilling moments of Smith’s career, he said.

Now, as Smith prepares to step into the role as the department’s permanent police chief, he’s driven by one goal — to make it better.

“What I have seen right now is that we have realized we need to focus on mission and service.  That is something near and dear to me as this community’s police chief, and that is what I’m most proud of,” he said. “I’m most proud of the people I’m fortunate enough to lead right now, and I’m very proud of the results we have delivered as a team.”

‘My heart is in investigations’

Smith’s law enforcement career began as a teenager when he volunteered with the Beaverton Police Department as a police cadet. At 19, he went through the reserve police officer academy, and he celebrated his 21st birthday with his first ride-along as a sworn reserve police officer with the Beaverton police.

Growing up in Washington County, his heroes were his grandfathers, who were both veterans of World War II. Smith originally had intentions of following in their footsteps and joining the military, but when he met his wife as a student at Portland State University, the impact that military service would have on his future as a husband and father drove him to continue on his path in law enforcement.

It was during his time with the Forest Grove police that he learned the detective skills that would eventually help him investigate child abuse in St. Helens.

“I spent probably half my career as a detective,” Smith said. “My heart is in investigations.”

Smith has served as the lead detective in the cases against St. Helens High School teachers Eric Stearns and Mark Collins, and he wants to invest in investigative training for other St. Helens officers. Knowing how closely he worked with his mentor in Forest Grove, Smith has plans to be a hands-on teacher to ensure the department has the resources it needs to conduct investigations.

“I think it’s really important for me, as a leader, to do that for my new detectives, to make sure that St. Helens has well-trained and competent police detectives that work here,” Smith said.

Chief’s priorities

Along with investing in detective work, one of Smith’s other priorities is professional development and training.

“I’m a big, firm believer about training your replacement,” he said.

When the time comes for Smith to retire and leave law enforcement, he wants to make sure that he has spent enough time on professional development in the department that the transition to the next chief of police, who he hopes works at the department now, is seamless.

He also plans to prioritize the department’s focus on combating internet crimes against children.

Smith is the assigned officer to crimes such as child pornography possession and child trafficking, and he gets notified every time the department receives a report. With the volume of cases the department receives, more officers need to be trained on how to investigate and handle these crimes, he said.

“We need to train up additional individuals to be these Internet Crimes Against Children officers, and that’s going to be a top priority for me,” he said.

He has plans to connect with other agencies to work collaboratively on solving these crimes, he said.

“So if we identify a child that might be trafficked, we move immediately and we get officers embedded, we get the necessary investigation conducted and we get that child safe,” Smith said.

To bolster future collaboration, Smith plans to revisit the department’s mutual aid policy, which was severely restricted under former police Chief Brian Greenway.

“That’s something that under previous administrations I very strongly disagreed with, and something that I plan on changing in short order,” he said.

Rebuilding trust

It’s been a tumultuous year for the St. Helens Police Department.

Smith will be the third person to lead the department since January, following Greenway, who resigned from the position amid a scathing report alleging rampant abuse of power, and Joe Hogue, who took over as the interim police chief in Greenway’s stead, but was ultimately rejected as the city’s next chief of police in favor of Smith. Hogue is also currently suing the city.

In this role, Smith knows he’s walking into a difficult situation.

“I’m not going to lie, there’s quite a bit of pressure involved in making sure we get this right,” he said.

If there aren’t clear signs of improvement under his command, Smith said he’s ready to let someone else take over and finish out his career working as a detective. But with his philosophy of leading by example, he’s confident the community will see positive outcomes.

“I think the citizens have to see these results, but I think for the most part, the overwhelming majority of officers here are some of the hardest working, most professional police officers I’ve ever served with. I think the best thing we can do is just focus on doing our jobs,” he said. “Do the best jobs we can do, and I think our results, in the end, are going to rebuild trust with the community.”

Addressing the issues at hand

While he works on bringing the department’s mission of community safety back into focus, Smith also has plans for some of the department’s other most pressing issues.

The ability for St. Helens to provide 24/7 police coverage became a point of concern last year, with a brief suspension of service in October. Currently, the officers maintain constant coverage of the city by working overtime.

“So what’s happening is that our officers are voluntarily working overtime seven days a week to ensure the citizens here have coverage,” Smith said.

That isn’t sustainable long term, Smith said, and his vision for the next two years involves hiring and training new officers so the department can be fully staffed.

“I want St. Helens citizens to know that if you call 911 at 2:30, 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning, there’s going to be a St. Helens officer on duty who’s going to respond to assist, and you’re going to have well-trained, competent detectives to assist as well if it’s a serious crime,” he said.

The city is also looking at constructing a new police station, which Smith feels is important to maintaining the level of police service the city needs.

“Out of all the police departments I’ve worked at in my career, the police facility here is probably the most substandard,” he said.

The police station was constructed at a time when the standard wasn’t to preserve DNA evidence, when female police officers were a rarity and when all police officers didn’t need access to a computer.

But the very nature of police work has changed, Smith said, and now they have to find workarounds to operate as a modern department.

One of the biggest points of concern for Smith is that there is no trauma-informed space for officers to conduct interviews. Instead, victims of crimes like sexual assault are interviewed in a “dilapidated trailer” that doubles as a classroom and storage space.

While plans for the new station are finalized, one of the immediate changes Smith plans to make is to repurpose the department’s satellite facility into a trauma-informed interview room, he said.

“So that when someone is the victim of a crime, in particular, if a woman is the victim of a sexually-based offense, that they’re actually shown the respect they deserve,” he said.

But a police department works best under one roof, and Smith sees the new station as an investment in the city’s future.

“If they do build this facility as it’s designed, I’ve reviewed the plans myself, and I can say that this facility will last the community here 50 years,” he said.

Looking ahead

Smith still needs to pass a number of tests before he is officially named as the city’s police chief, including a background investigation and medical and psychological evaluations.

But if all goes well, he says people can expect to see change in the department.

“I think you’re going to see a real focus right now on pivoting of how we used to do business, to a new method of doing business, which is going to be really laser focused on keeping our mission,” he said.

He wants the community to see him and share thoughts on the department’s strengths and weaknesses. He wants to check in on the city’s most vulnerable groups — senior citizens, children and the intellectually disabled — and make sure they’re protected. And most of all, he wants to deliver results.

“We have a mission here, and we’re going to stay focused on that mission, and our mission is serving the citizens here,” he said.