New adrenaline rush
Former bull rider becomes Pottsville police chief
Sgt. Robert Dowling Jr. of Dardanelle was a bull rider for 12 years, but he found that same adrenaline rush when he discovered law enforcement.
The 42-year-old Dowling, an officer with the Pottsville Police Department, was appointed police chief by Mayor Jerry Williams.
Williams said a list of applicants for chief was narrowed to two, Dowling and Jason Smith, a deputy with the Pope County Sheriff ’s Office.
“I felt like [Smith] had a real good resume, but I just felt like Robert already knew the system we had here,” Williams said. “I felt comfortable with him, knowing as much as I do.”
Chief Blake Herren, 51, is retiring and will become the city’s parks director Jan. 1.
“Robert’s a good guy,” Herren said. He said Dowling will bring “more energy and vision and keep [the department] moving.”
Dowling started riding bulls when he was attending Dardanelle High School.
“I was good enough to do that,” he said. Dowling said he competed all over Arkansas, and “that’s what I ate on and paid my bills with.” He didn’t win a lot, though.
The object is to stay on the bull for eight seconds: “the longest eight seconds of your life,” he said.
“I had some broken bones — I’ve broken my arm, dislocated shoulders, broken an ankle. … I don’t know how many stitches and staples I’ve had,” he said. “I started getting older and starting hurting more
and taking longer to heal and realized I needed a different career.”
He discovered law enforcement almost by accident.
“I was actually helping build a house for a Russellville police officer in 1998, and I went on a ride-along with him, and we got in a little foot pursuit, a little excitement, and I was hooked from there,” Dowling said.
The perpetrator was breaking into a house, and although Dowling wasn’t allowed to participate, he witnessed the chase.
“It took the adrenaline away from the bull riding,” he said.
In February, he will start his 16th year in law enforcement.
His first job was as a jailer for the Yell County Sheriff’s Department in Dardanelle. He went to school part time and became a police officer.
From there, he went to the Danville Police Department and loved it, he said.
One incident stands out from the others.
“I was there almost 12 years, and I got called to a stabbing, and a guy had been stabbed in the forehead, and the knife was sticking out of his forehead, but he was walking around,” Dowling said. “It didn’t hurt him a bit.”
When Dowling left there, he took a job as a deputy with the Yell County Sheriff’s Department, where he stayed only a year before joining the Pottsville Police Department in October 2012.
“I did not like being a deputy. I guess just the territory; there’s a lot of territory for one person to cover. Unfortunately over there, there are not many deputies out at the same time,” he said.
Dowling said he and Chief Herren hit it off immediately.
“I think it was a blessing that God had just brought me and him together; it was kind of like we clicked as soon as we met,” Dowling said.
Dowling is an ordained minister, and so is Herren.
“When you meet that person, and you have the same interest and being two men of God and just believing together and being humble enough to pray with each other, it was kind of a bond we just walked into,” Dowling said.
Dowling, whose father is a retired minister, said he doesn’t pastor a church; he “evangelizes,” or fills in at churches and speaks at events when asked.
He attends Russellville First Assembly of God and became a minister in 2009.
“I guess it’s just a calling, something God put in my heart, a passion in my heart to do, and he blessed me with the opportunity to do it,” Dowling said.
Dowling became patrol sergeant at the department in 2013, and he’s also an investigator.
“Our patrol officers get called to crime scenes, whether it be a burglary or something to that effect. … They call me out to investigate the crime scene,” he said.
Pottsville was named the 10th safest city in the nation by SafeWise.
“We’re pretty proud of that,” Dowling said. “There are a lot of property crimes here; we do a lot with the theft, not a lot with personal crimes.”
When Herren announced he was going to retire and move over to the parks department, Dowling said he didn’t automatically decide to apply for chief.
“It was something I talked about with my wife, and I talked about with Chief Herren,” Dowling said. He said he also asked everyone to pray about it.
He and his wife, Courtney, have three sons: Tyler, 21; Lane, 17; and Landon, 9; and a daughter, Jayden, 8.
Dowling said he thought the department might benefit from his years of experience.
“The younger guys, the police academy shows you how to do things, but the years [of] experience, it shows them the practical way of how things are actually going to go. You can’t do everything by the textbooks. You have to show officers an easier way to do [things], or a more functional way.”
He said the department, which will have six full-time officers when he’s promoted, will hire an officer for the sergeant’s position and possibly for a patrol officer.
He said the Pottsville officers are a close-knit group.
“We’ve got a strong camaraderie here. It goes deeper into a brotherhood than just a co-worker. We’re a department that’s not afraid to ask another officer for prayer, or just sit down and vent when we need to vent. We trust each other; you have to trust each other in this line of work,” he said.
Dowling said that in the past five years, he has seen a decline in respect for officers.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said.
When he was growing up, he was taught “that you respect law enforcement. It’s gotten to a point that we don’t get respect, and we’re just an inconvenience when we’re out trying to do our job. It’s kind of frustrating,” he said.
Dowling said it’s not personal when an officer stops someone for a traffic violation, for example.
“They take it personal, and that’s not our intent, to make it personal.”
Dowling has a few goals that he wants to implement through his new position.
“I would like to see us get more community-oriented policing, more training in our schools with our schoolteachers, more training with the students with the active-shooter situations and get more of a game plan with that and, of course, make sure my officers go home safe at night,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 tkeith@arkansasonline.com.or