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CHARLOTTE — Ken Miller walked around the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police headquarters Thursday morning with a bright grin.

He was trying to get a cup of coffee, only to be stopped by officers who extended their hands in congratulation and regret that he’s walking away to become Greensboro’s next police chief.

“Chief, chief!” one officer blared upon spotting Miller. “When’s your last day?”

“We hate to see you go.”

“Greensboro is getting a good one.”

Miller, 46, shook his head and thanked them for their help along the way. He started here 21 years ago, when he moved to Charlotte for his first job out of college as a patrol officer.

He rose to senior deputy police chief, the city’s No. 2 police official.

His colleagues and people in the community say he did it through hard work, an attitude of fairness, a commitment to making his department better and ensuring his officers were taken care of.

“I dig into every assignment I’ve ever been in,” he said. “I change it. I reshape it. I look at things, and I try to make them better.”

He has chosen to dig into one of the toughest jobs in Greensboro: leading a police department simmering with internal turmoil caused by accusations of racism, corruption, double standards and controversial suspensions.

His approach? An open mind. Rebuilding trust. Examining the past but not dwelling on it. Moving forward.

Open-door management style

Miller makes one thing clear. He’s not interested in bringing Charlotte to Greensboro. He doesn’t plan to bring any of his staff with him.

Crime fighting, management styles, doling out discipline, communicating with the public — he said he knows that just because it worked in Charlotte doesn’t mean it will work in Greensboro.

One thing he does plan to bring is what he calls the core values of any law enforcement organization: integrity, dignity and respect.

“I want that department to know that when they are doing the right things, I am going to be backing them 100 percent,” he said. “When they are doing the wrong things, we are going to say, 'We did something wrong and here’s what we are doing to fix it.’ ”

Recent issues have revolved around how the department disciplines minority officers including Officer A.J. Blake. He is on unpaid leave and on Friday will face his second termination hearing in as many years amid fallout from a domestic assault arrest in early 2009. He was acquitted in court, but has been navigating disciplinary issues ever since.

The city is also dealing with the controversial suspension of Capt. Charles Cherry, who was ordered to undergo a mental evaluation in June after helping several officers file grievances against the department. He passed those evaluations, but remains stuck in the disciplinary process.

Others associated with Cherry’s case are undergoing disciplinary actions in what some community groups contend is an effort to get them fired. They call Cherry and Blake’s cases part of a “subculture of corruption” and “double standards” in the department.

That’s in addition to other legal problems the past few years, including 39 officers suing the city on racial discrimination grounds under the administration of former Chief David Wray, who resigned in 2006.

Miller said many of the issues will have to “run their course” through the disciplinary processes, which he feels are being revamped by the city manager’s office.

“They are trying to move through the mountains of grievances being filed and have worked through some structure (issues) in the internal affairs process,” he said.

“I believe they are working through some of the issues before I get there so we can pick it up and move forward.”

Miller intends to build a consistent management style that sets clear standards for officer behavior, discipline, interactions with one another and with the public. He plans to develop that after meetings within the department and community.

He said an open-door management style is key to creating a motivated work force.

“If you let them run with their ideas, if they are sound and well thought through, you can have some real success,” Miller said. “All people want is to be believed in.”

GPS monitoring of offenders

At the heart of Miller’s job is crime fighting.

“We are going to talk a lot about crime; that’s what we are there to do,” he said. “Crime is down and that’s a good thing, but I don’t know what amount that is due to organizational initiatives — but I suspect some of it is.”

The city has undergone a 24 percent decrease in violent crime and 10 percent drop in property crime through July 2010, compared to 2009. That reflects state and national trends.

Miller said he is focused on initiating programs to drive down crime.

In Charlotte, Miller built part of his reputation by creating a program in 2007 to reduce the number of repeat offenders.

It’s an all too common trend: A suspect is arrested for breaking into a house on Monday. By Tuesday morning, he’s out of jail on bond. On Tuesday afternoon, he’s kicking in another door ... until he is caught again.

Miller helped start a GPS monitoring bracelet program to do something about it.

Officials placed bracelets on suspects with a history of a robbery, burglary, aggravated assault and vehicle thefts, which then accounted for half of Charlotte’s violent crimes.

If the offender goes outside of their pre-approved area or violates their release conditions, the police receive an alert within 10 seconds and an officer is dispatched to their location to find out why.

Miller said 85 percent of about 1,000 offenders who have been in the program have completed their monitoring terms without problems. About 10 percent were found to be involved in continued criminal activity and about 5 percent had issues just violating their court-ordered restrictions.

“The structure around this really keeps (offenders) in line,” he said. “You are essentially attaching an officer to them 24/7.”

The program costs about $255,000 a year to monitor 175 offenders.

“This is something Chief Miller put together himself to solve a problem through us,” said Ken Gill, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Foundation and president of CPI Security. “The city took the ball and ran with it.”

Community policing in Charlotte

Many people close to Miller said he shined as a police captain in the North Tryon patrol division, where he worked in 1996 through 2000.

The area was seeing a increase in crime and gang activity.

Through Miller’s community policing programs, the area turned around by bringing the police and the community to work out issues.

“It was an area where the businesses were cranky because they wanted to be protected by the police and the residents thought they were the crime hot spots of the city,” said Mary Hopper, executive director of University City Partners, a economic-community development group in Charlotte.

“There were unreal expectations from both sides and the potential for confrontations. He was willing to be on the front line and take verbal abuse, but not lose his cool,” she said.

“He wasn’t one to lecture the community, but expressed to them what they can do to help them as police officers.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Sgt. Todd Walther has known Miller most of his career. They patrolled neighboring divisions in the early 1990s, and as Miller climbed the ranks, he became Walther’s supervisor.

Walther said Miller will keep Greensboro’s department on the cutting edge with new technology.

“Ken has always been very knowledgeable and I’ve always joked with him as being ahead of his time,” said Walther, also president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #9.

“He’s always thinking about what is next.”

Walther, who has served under five chiefs in his 20-year career, said Greensboro officers likely have a bit of nervousness and skepticism about their new leader, especially because he’s an outsider.

“That’s expected,” Walther said. “But I think the officers in Greensboro, once they get to know Ken Miller and what he’s all about, (they will see) he wants to give the officers what they need to do a high-quality job.”

Panthers fan, family man

Miller said he’s had his eye on a job in Greensboro for a long time. It was one of three police departments he considered joining when he graduated from East Tennessee State University with degrees criminal justice and political science in the late 1980s.

He wound up in Charlotte because he was offered a job and his wife, Kris, had family there.

Miller is originally from Long Island, N.Y., and grew up until age 14 in the small town of Nesconset, as the son of a Nassau County police officer.

His family moved south to a farm in rural Mosheim, Tenn.

That’s where he graduated from high school and later served as an auxiliary sheriff’s deputy at the Greene County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Department after a stint in the Air Force.

While in Charlotte, he and his wife, an assistant high school principal, had two boys. He also obtained a master’s degree in public administration at UNC-Charlotte.

Miller describes his personal life as being low-key, as he is content spending time with his family. He loves spending time on his boat, watching the Carolina Panthers and enjoys restoring homes.

He plans to continue tutoring in schools in Greensboro, will serve as a mentor in Big Brothers Big Sisters, work as a Boy Scouts’ leader and stay active in volunteer projects.

He hopes to finish his career as a Greensboro police officer.

“I’m embracing something new,” Miller said. “As everything in my career, I want to learn it, master it and shape it in a way that makes it better.”

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com