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Roush retiring as Lafayette police chief

Lafayette’s police chief is retiring after 26 years with the department.

Don Roush has been the lead officer for more than eight years, but is leaving to become the Assistant Director of the Weekend MBA program with Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.

He is most proud of some of the cultural changes while leading the department.

"Trying to learn to solve problems versus as looking a policing as something you just respond to," he said, "instead of just responding you come to it and look at it with more of a critical eye and say 'what can we do try and solve the problem' so you lower the incidents of problems and make it more efficient for police officers to do more or more problem solving."

Roush retires at the end of the month.

The city is already accepting resumes for his successor.

He hopes his replacement can maintain a solid relationship with the community.

“How you treat people, how you come across to people in providing your service makes a great, great deal of benefit for them as well as the agency," he said. "It really builds and earns a lot of trust in what you do.”

The goal is to make the hire so the next chief can train under Roush for about two weeks before he leaves.