Sutter named to lead consolidated Princeton Police Department through times of change
By Scott Morgan
By and large, police departments in the United States are long-established entities. Their missions and cultures and procedures were set in place years ago — which makes most departments resistant to change.
So Nick Sutter is aware of the opportunity he has in his grasp right now. As the newly named chief of the Princeton Police Department, Sutter is the first chief ever sworn in to lead the unified department, and as such is set to oversee the development of a new organization made up, in part, of things that worked in the two separate departments.
So far, at least, he finds it the most enriching experience of his career. And he’s only officially been at the helm since March 31.
Sutter, however, has been in charge of the department since February 2013, when Chief David Dudeck left amid allegations of creating a hostile work environment that eventually brought a lawsuit filed by seven officers against the ex-chief. That was only a few months after the consolidation of the borough and township departments. That lawsuit has not yet been heard.
Then-Capt. Sutter, who had been with the Princeton Borough Police Department since 1995, was named “officer in charge” (but not chief) of the department.
Sutter, who was sworn in on April 29, said that the smoothest part of the transition by far has been the personnel.
“The officers,” Sutter said, “melded together flawlessly. The policy was not so easy, though.”
Yes, the policy. The entrenched ideas of two departments sewn together. Sutter wanted to make sure the final product came out looking like a nice suit rather than a Frankenstein-like patchwork, and the task has been far more nagging than he at first believed.
The decisions piled up quickly: Which policies from which department do you keep? Which do you discard? What makes the way one department answered calls better or worse — or just plain different — from the way things went down across the invisible border?
“The process is very, very similar to bringing two families together,” he said. “There are so many nuances. There are cultures and differences that are exclusive to each family.”
It’s not necessarily that the differences were good or bad, Sutter says. Just different. The way one department investigated a specific type of crime, for instance, might involve methods or procedures not present in the other department.
Sutter’s job, almost immediately, became finding a way to standardize the policies, practices and procedures.
“We really had to get down into the weeds,” he said.
Pretty much all of Year One was taken up by management, policy rewrites, and new ways of standardizing. And though in Year Two the department is moving into leadership, training, and mentoring practices for young officers, Sutter equates the still happening parade of surprises — “We’re still finding things out, like we have different forms for something we never noticed until now” — to the last five pounds everyone has the most trouble losing. But the newly unified police department is almost where it needs to be.
“Operationally, I think about 90 percent there,” Sutter said.
The internal focus on leadership is also one on mission and philosophy. Sutter says the department will be developing a strategic five-year plan that will build the department in an unconventional way. It will, in fact, be seeking input from residents as to how the department should operate.
If you’ve never heard of that approach before, you’re not alone. In fact, the very idea of a police department sitting down with focus groups of community members (whom Sutter refers to as “our stakeholders”) in order to find out how the citizenry would like to see the department operate may not have been tried at all.
But again, Sutter has a rare opportunity before him to build a new police department under his stewardship while having the fortune to draw from an existing body of work. Generally speaking, there aren’t a lot of new police departments cropping up these days, so when it happens, a wise chief is one who embraces innovative thinking.
“With two longstanding communities building a new organization from the ground up, what better place to start?” Sutter asked.
If anyone has confidence in Sutter’s ability to pull off a new kind of police department that befits Princeton’s innovative reputation, it’s Mayor Liz Lempert.
“Sometimes you’re lucky and you have the right person at the right place and at the right time,” Lempert said at Sutter’s swearing in. “Capt. Sutter inherited a force in crisis, and has not only steadied the ship, he has (also) infused the department with energy, optimism and hope.”
Lempert calls Sutter the right mix of collaborative, innovative and progressive. One of the more progressive approaches Sutter has so far taken is in Princeton’s immigration policy. No municipal police department has jurisdiction over immigration policies, of course, but Princeton has a heavy immigrant Hispanic population that, culturally, often fears and mistrusts the police.
Sutter and the department pursued efforts to promote the development of trust and to identify the concerns, perceptions and problems in the Hispanic community.
“The efforts began by focusing on educational presentations and question/answer sessions that took place immediately after the Spanish Mass on Sunday nights at St. Paul’s Church,” said the police department’s annual report for 2013.
“Because of the support of Father Miguel Valle, attendance at the sessions averaged 207 people,” said the report. “In addition, St. Paul’s allowed the department to place two comments/questions boxes in the church so anonymous questions could be asked or comments made regarding the police department. The questions and comments were addressed at subsequent meetings.”
The department also held a series of six meetings between May and November, focused on improving relations with the community.
Meanwhile, Sutter said he believes the officers have responded well to the changes over the past few years. He said they’re more flexible and open to policy changes and want to know more. They’re no longer relying on the “this-is-how-it’s-always-been” thinking that stagnates a department and makes one ever-further out of touch with the community it serves.
The public, too, Sutter said, has been terrific in the way it has responded to the newly unified department. He expected to deal with a lot of “this is the way it used to be,” he said, but to his surprise, he hasn’t gotten any of it.
“The community has been very open and supportive,” he said. “I think they look at it like they’ve got the best of both worlds. Which they do. We took our best existing practices and combined them with our new best practices. We want to be progressive and think outside the box of traditional police thinking.”
Seeing things differently is not a new concept for Sutter. In his 20 years in uniform, the 43-year-old native of Hillsborough (and current resident of Lawrence) says his views on policing in general have changed dramatically. The biggest realizations: one, that technology has changed the game entirely; and two, that communication is vital on all levels — between officers, up and down the chain of command and with the community.
On technology, Sutter sometimes can’t believe how advanced things are compared to a decade ago. Just 10 years ago, officers didn’t have wireless smartphones. If they had to call in, away from their cars, they needed to find a payphone (and always carry quarters). Today, technology keeps officers in constant contact, and that’s about more than calling in from the scene of an accident — it’s about social media communications as well.
The department has ramped up (and will keep on ramping) its social media and online presence and make a point to stay in touch through social media and traditional media channels, Sutter said. Hardly a surprise coming from a former public information officer, though.
“Nine years ago, as the press officer, we did press releases maybe every other day,” Sutter said. “Today, it’s minute-to-minute through social media.”
Sutter’s unusual way of thinking is also nothing new. He graduated Kean University with a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics, and spent the first four months of his career in finance before he could no longer ignore his boyhood wish to be a police officer like his uncle, who was an officer In Plainfield.
“Police work was my calling,” he says.
The rest is history, even as it’s being written.
Nick Sutter, a resident of Lawrence Township, was sworn in as the first chief of the unified Princeton Police Department on April 29, 2014.,
