OOLITIC – In a special meeting Wednesday night, the Oolitic Town Council announced the hiring of James T. Harrington as the next Deputy Town Marshal.
The Council unanimously voted Harrington, a 21-year law enforcement official, to the role of Deputy Marshal along with his K-9 companion Denny in order to assist Town Marshal John Jeffries following the resignation of Deputy Marshall Andrew Tillett.
Harrington currently serves with IU Health as a police officer where he will remain in that role. Harrington has previously served as the Marshal of Cynthiana in Posey county, as well as a Deputy Marshal in Winslow.
With his history in serving smaller communities, Harrington believes stepping into this role is the best way he can serve the community.
“The majority of my law enforcement career aside from the six years I spent as a Deputy Sheriff and the year I spent with the Department of Defense has been with a smaller agency,” Harrington said. “I like the smaller agencies due to the fact that I know who is supposed to be in certain locations and who or what the criminal element is, so it’s a good way to serve a community at the smaller level than it is at the larger level at times.”
Accepting this role does come with challenges, but Harrington is ready to step up to the plate.
“Getting narcotics off the street and start to clean up the problem areas that I have been told about. If we can focus on the narcotics within the community as far as getting the appropriate charges applied, or getting those people the help that the prosecutors office may be able to provide to them then I think that would be a success.”
Council member John Dillon believes this hiring is the best move the town could make with the replacement of Deputy Tillett.
“We believe we found the perfect guy. We just had to put our ducks in a row in order to get to this point,” said Dillon. “What really sold me on James was he said that he would hop on a garbage truck in order to get to know the town and said it was the best way he could learn how to clean the town up.”
Council member John Broglin believes Marshal Harrington will help the Town of Oolitic become better.
“This is a step in the right direction for Oolitic for the time to come,” said Broglin.
