After 35 years of service to Windsor police — nearly eight as chief — Al Frederick is nearing retirement.
An open house to honour the chief was held Tuesday evening with a receiving line out the room and into the hallway at the Police Training Centre on Sandwich St.
Chief Frederick is set to retire at the end of June and hopes his successor can take it to the next level.
"Where we are as far as our development as a professional police service going forward," he says. "The new chief has to sit down and there's going to be all kinds of different situations and problems for that person to solve but they have the tools to do it and they have a great team behind them."
When he thinks back on his career as a police officer, Frederick says there is one event that will stay with him forever.
"I think pretty well any officer that was here when John was murdered — John Atkinson — that day will stick with us until we die. I can remember exactly where I was at that moment, exactly what I was doing and then I went to the scene."
The job has never been easy for the chief.
Frederick led the department most recently through a spike in crime in 2018, when there were ten murder investigations. The police chief also had to respond to questions about a 911 call to his home in November 2018 as well as a number of human rights complaints against the police department.
Frederick has no major plans in the works for his retirement except to do a lot of volunteer work and he points out he has a 'couple of things' he's looking at.
He was scheduled to retire in January 2018, but he delayed it as the city had submitted a bid to take over Amherstburg policing, and other on-going issues such as the legalization of marijuana and the opioid crisis.
Mayor and Chair of the Police Services Board Drew Dilkens says he would like to have a new chief in place by July.