Uxbridge to swear in chief wednesday
UXBRIDGE — A formal swearing-in ceremony for Uxbridge’s new police chief is scheduled to be held Wednesday.
Marc Montminy, a 30-year veteran of the Manchester, Connecticut Police Department, is scheduled to assume command of the department next week. The ceremony on Wednesday will take place at
6 p.m. in the lower Town Hall, 21 South Main St.
“The public is invited to witness the swearing in and have a chance to meet Chief Montminy and welcome him to the town,” said Town Manager Angeline Ellison.
Montminy was been hired for the $110,000a-year position last month. He succeeds former Police Chief Jeffrey A. Lourie, who left in February to become chief of police in Westborough.
Montminy, 54, a Rhode Island native who was born in Cumberland, was a rtown police officer in Manchester for almost 30 years. Hired by that department in 1989l, he held patrol and administrative positions before being named chief in 2009.
Montminy is credited with helping to computerize department records and other data systems and presided over the installation of a new digital dispatch center that opened in 2013.
The chief also became a sought-after speaker on active shooting scenarios after a gunman shot and killed eight co-workers and then committed suicide at Hartford Distributors on Aug. 3, 2010. In 2016, Montminy co-founded Operation HOPE (Heroin/Opioid Prevention & Education Initiative), a local response to the increase in overdoses from heroin, fentanyl and other opiates. The program is meant to move addicts into treatment rather than jail.
Montminy has an Associate’s degree from Manchester Community College; a Bachelor’s degree from Charter Oak State College; and a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Baltimore.
He also completed professional development programs at the Police School of Staff and Command at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Ellison said she chose Montminy based on his experience, his commitment to law enforcement, his temperament and his longevity in Manchester.
Lourie was Uxbridge’s chief since 2013. He served as a detective lieutenant in Auburn before being appointed as Uxbridge’s chief of police. When Lourie was appointed to the $132,000 a year Uxbridge job in 2013, it was the first time in the history of the department that someone from outside the department had been chosen as chief.
Lourie is widely credited with bolstering the department’s community policing program, expanding the department’s presence on social media and bringing in the department’s first K9.