Public Safety Director Murphy Speaks Out on Retirement

Mayor Todd Strange created the City Public Safety Director position in 2010. He appointed former State Public Safety Director Chris Murphy to the job.
He was hired to oversee 3 departments including police, fire and emergency communications.
After 7 years with the city and 40 years in law enforcement, he says its time to move on.

“A man of faith, that’s important to me. I’ve been here 7 years and law enforcement 40 years. Those are two real strong biblical numbers and it seems the right timing,” said Murphy.

Murphy says he with be doing some security consulting with some international and domestic work.
As for the mayor, he told Alabama News Network This Morning the retirement wasn’t about crime rate in Montgomery.

“Not at all. We’ve been talking about it. If you really want to look at the numbers over the last six months crime is down about 2 and 1/2 percent. If you look at the last three months it’s down about 16 percent.” said Strange.

As he looks back, Murphy says he is most proud of collaboration within the departments.

” Collaboration with the state, collaboration with the Montgomery Public School system, local universities, Maxwell, bringing all those in in a new way–I feel real good about that,” said Murphy.

Strange says he expects to announce his replacement in the next ten days.