Officer in NLR takes on new role
Helton is named as spokeswoman
The North Little Rock Police Department announced a new public information officer this week.
Sgt. Carmen Helton, who has served more than 20 years in the department, took over duties as the public information officer on Monday. She’s replacing officer Joe Green, who will be a recruiter for the department.
Helton had spent some time previously in the public information department.
Helton said that in her new role, she hopes to bolster public trust and engage North Little Rock residents about what is happening in their city.
“I’m here to obviously help with community engagement and help build the bridge between us and the community so that they can get the insight on what we do as a police department,” Helton said. “And obviously if we do build that trust and community engagement, if there is any kind of issue that we have going on in certain areas or are looking for a wanted individual, the public will help us out.”
Community relations are very important for the success of the department and are one of the toughest issues to navigate, according to Helton.
“It’s a partnership,” Helton said. “We need them to
help police their community as well, and hopefully, I’ll be able to bridge that gap and put up people on our social media and get that engagement going.”
Green was reassigned to the recruitment department, in a post he previously served in and that he had asked for, according to Helton.
Helton said Green was assigned the spokesman role after the previous public information officer, Sgt. Amy Cooper, was reassigned to patrol to bolster the number of sergeants in that division.
Green, who joined the department in 2009 as a detective before becoming a recruiter, said he is excited to be back in his old role, especially in an area where the department has room to improve.
“Recruiting being down is an understatement right now,” Green said. “It’s a tough environment just due to the social climate and culture and the differing mentalities of this newer generation.”
Police departments across the country were already struggling with recruitment before 2020, according to a Police Executive Research Forum survey. Combining that with the covid-19 pandemic and the increasing criticism of police last year has created a challenge, but Green said he hopes to promote the positives of law enforcement work.
“That’s a lot of obstacles and barriers that we’ve got to get past to hire on new police officers, and understand and make them believe that this is still a noble and honorable profession,” Green said.