Veteran Police Officers Retire After More Than 30 Years With Louisville Police Department

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- A lot has changed at the Louisville Police Department over the past 34 years, from the car logos to even the badges.

However, two things that have always remained constant are these gentlemen, Assistant Chief Andy Taylor and Lieutenant Greg Clark.

“Well over half of my life I’ve served the people of Louisville and tried to do as good of a job as I could,” said Assistant Chief Taylor, who spent more than three decades as an officer with LPD.

“Anytime you can do something you enjoy doing and make a living doing it, it’s a blessing,” said Lt. Clark, who’s spent over 30 years as an officer with LPD.

Clark grew up in Louisville and describes serving his hometown as both an honor and a challenge.

“You’ve got to do your job regardless of your friendships,” he said. “In a town this size you know everybody, everybody knows you. I’ve had a lot of support from other good officers and stuff that taught me ways to deal with those situations where you have to stop your friends or what not.”

Clark and Taylor both came to the Police Department in 1984.

“When we first started out we were lucky to have a couple of cars that would run, radios that we could barely talk on,” Taylor recalled. “We had to buy our own pistols, now we have computers in every car, we got a radios, we can talk all over the state in.”

Throughout his career, Taylor served as the assistant chief, but also spent two years as the police chief.

“I love it, I tried to give it my all, 100 percent,” Taylor expressed.

To show it’s appreciation for their hard work and dedication, the city of Louisville held  retirement celebration for Clark and Taylor.

It was a bittersweet occasion as the city came out to thank the two officers for their service.

As Clark and Taylor take off their badges and hang them in a trophy case, they said they’re at peace because they know they gave their all serving their community.

“Something that the younger officers nowadays are missing out on, when we started we were more like a family than we were employees of an organization,” Clark explained. “We hunted together, we fished together, we went to church together, even when we were not at work, we were together. It was more like family and friends than it was employees.”

“As one of the officers there said today, when it more less quits being fun and becomes a job 34 years, that’s enough for anybody in this line of work, too much sometimes,” said Taylor.

Taylor officially turned in his badge and retired at the beginning of July, and Clark officially retired on June 30th.