With a new King City chief on the way, we sit down with Chief James Hunt ahead of his retirement

KING CITY, Calif. (KION) - There's a change in leadership coming to the King City Police Department.

Chief James Hunt is set to retire on June 26th. In his few years as police chief, Chief Hunt says there has been so much to be proud of and grateful for.

"I have to say didn't come here intending to be the police chief, but it has been an absolute honor to get the opportunity to serve in this capacity," said James Hunt, Police Chief for the King City Police Department.

"Can you talk to me about some of the challenges that you faced during your time?"

"The initial challenge was trying to restaff the police department, which I'm sure you've heard stories. In today's time, it's very, very difficult to do. Not a lot of people are going into law enforcement, like when I first came on, and we're competing with a lot of other agencies. I mean, quite frankly, most of the agencies in Monterey County have shortages to some degree, and so we're all competing for the same candidates, and that proved to be challenging, but over the next year, maybe 16 months, we did rebuild the department where we were. Technically, on paper, at full capacity. We were not there again, but we were there at that moment for a short period of time, and that was the biggest struggle, as the chief is just trying to recruit. We did have a mass shooting incident where 11 people were shot, and unfortunately, four people lost their lives. That's not something you see every day, especially in a little community like this. So it did take all of us, along with our allied partners, to ban resources or pull resources together to solve that. Did was an officer-involved shooting. That's something that we never hoped to have. It's an unfortunate reality of our job. Fortunately, our officers were fine. And then, you know, obviously, more recently, we lost Sergeant Kennedy, one of our more tenured people in the department. Somebody who was beloved in the community and unfortunately succumbed to a medical emergency," said Hunt.

"How is the police department combating gang violence within the city?"

"Well, you know, that's a complicated issue. We do have, obviously, some gang issues of our own in the city, but some of those issues, our most recent shootings, including the mass shooting, weren't perpetrated by people in King City. They were perpetrated in other communities in Monterey County. They came down here for the express purpose of… Inflicting injury and or death on some of our population down here. So it's a very complicated issue to try to address, but we've worked hard with our resources to try and be proactive in addressing," said Hunt.

"What are some accomplishments?"

"I'm very proud of the officers we brought on. We didn't lower standards trying to fill spots. We brought in people who were highly qualified, and more importantly, more local people, with the idea that we would be able to retain them for the long term. And in my tenure as chief, we've solved almost all of the shootings. All of the homicides have been solved, and we've solved almost all the shootings that detectives were assigned to. And that's not because of me, that's just because of recognizing good people and putting them in the right spot," said Hunt.

"What's your message to the community?"

"Well, first of all, my primary message to the community is thank you for welcoming me here. And then I would say I have felt an overwhelming sense of support coming from the community. You know, we're not perfect. We're never going to be perfect, but we do try to go out and do the right thing. And I think the community recognized that, recognizes it, and they were supportive of me and all of our efforts during my tenure as chief," said Hunt.

"What are your hopes for the future?"

"I'd like to see the chief as well as, hopefully, city staff in the community. Grow the apartment, you know, obviously king city is a growing community and as it grows we need to grow too now the service the demand on services has grown and we really haven't grown all that much so it'd be good over the next decade or so to see staffing levels rise that we could provide even more service," said Hunt.

As for his personal plans for the future, he hopes to go into the civilian side of law enforcement, like going into education and teaching at junior colleges around the central coast…As well as spending some much-needed time with family.

The new police chief is a familiar face to many in the community. His name is Robert Masterson, and he was previously in the same role in 2016.