Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety approved a Warsaw Police Department resignation and promotion during Friday’s meeting. The board approved Steven Rockey’s resignation from WPD patrol division lieutenant. He will be the WPD corporal effective June 12. Rockey’s new bi-weekly salary is $2,027.28. The board also approved Joel Beam being promoted from corporal to patrol division lieutenant effective June 12. Beam’s new salary is $2,023.54 bi-weekly. The board also approved hiring Trenton Shively to serve as a WPD patrol officer effective June 12. Shively’s salary will be $1,576.41 bi-weekly. Shively is currently living in Warsaw and has five years of police experience and is currently with the Plymouth Police Department. He previously worked for WPD as a part-time park patrol officer before he was employed at Plymouth. The city last year approved WPD hiring an additional officer. Hiring Shively will make 36 patrol officers at WPD. According to WPD Chief Scott Whitaker, Rockey submitted a letter of resignation to him on May 31 stating he wished to resign from his current rank effective June 11. Whitaker said the letter did not state Rockey’s reason for resigning. Rockey has spent the last year and a half as the lieutenant of the patrol division. Prior to that, he spent the previous four years as a patrol sergeant, and eight years as a patrol corporal. Beam was hired in 1999. He is a 1996 graduate of Grace College. Prior to being hired at WPD, he was chief of security for Grace College and was employed by Winona Lake Police Department. In August 2011, Beam received the City of Warsaw life-saving award as well as a Purple Heart award from Mayor Ernie Wiggins for saving the life of an individual at Center Lake. Beam is a certified field training officer and a seven-year member of the Kosciusko Joint SWAT Team.Beam also has been one of two K9 handlers at WPD for the past five years and was promoted to the rank of corporal in June 2008. Beam is a department instructor in field sobriety and police traffic stop procedures. “I look forward to working with both officers in their new capacities and have a great deal of confidence in their abilities,” Whitaker said.
