GREENFIELD — Local law enforcement is mourning the death of the Greenfield Police Department’s longest serving police chief, remembering him for his years of dedicated hard work and his efforts to better the department and the community it protected.
Charles Glidewell died last week at the age of 82.
He joined the Greenfield Police Department in 1962, and served as its chief from 1970 to 1983. In those years, he helped to advance the department, forming a full-time detective and reserve unit and embracing technology and better training standards.
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After his retirement, he continued to devote his life to law enforcement and investigations, working for state and federal agencies, the local prosecutors and as a Hancock County deputy coroner.
To his friends and former colleagues, he was Charlie — a dedicated and hardworking member of law enforcement who could be tough and understanding in the same heartbeat.
Glidewell was born and raised on the West Coast, living in Washington and California in his youth.
He served in the California National Guard for a year before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1954. He served overseas in Korea and France before becoming a reservist in 1958 and remained one until 1962. When he returned to California after his time in the military, he worked at supermarkets and in construction until he became a police reserve and worked part-time as an emergency dispatcher.
His police work eventually brought him to Greenfield, where he took a position as a full-time police officer in February 1961. He remained in Greenfield for the rest of his career.
Glidewell climbed the ranks of the Greenfield Police Department and served as the chief from August 1970 until his retirement in December 1983. To date, he is the longest serving chief the department has seen, officials say.
During his time in the department’s top job, Glidewell established a full-time detective unit within the department, oversaw the city’s firing range and developed physical fitness and training programs.
Glidewell also created the department’s first reserve police officer unit — a group of officers who have the same powers and training as full-time police, but don’t get paid.
The chief worked with then-representative Ray Richardson to create the first Indiana laws recognizing reserve law enforcement officers and establishing training and appointment standards.
These men and women, called upon any time extra manpower is needed during large-scale emergencies or festivals and other events, do great work while saving cities, towns and counties money, Richardson said.
And Glidewell’s work and ideas helped pave the way for departments statewide to legally utilize volunteer officers. It formalized their positions within state law enforcement, Richardson said.
After retirement, Glidewell took jobs as an officer for the Veterans Administration and an investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, both in Seattle.
He returned to Greenfield in December 1985 to become the investigator for the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office, under the leadership of then-prosecutor Terry Snow.
Glidewell was a hardworking and dedicated worker, said Snow, now the judge in Hancock County Superior Court 1.
His law enforcement experience meant he knew police officers well and understood how they worked. He could easily walk into a department and get the information prosecutors needed, and he was always willing to offer tips to younger, new officers. That helped forge a positive, comradely and open relationship with local departments and the prosecutor’s office of the time, Snow said.
“He was the most easy-going a guy you’d ever meet. He treated everyone with respect and worked well with everyone,” Snow said. “He had strong opinions but kept them to himself until the right moment.”
In his retirement, Glidewell served on the Hancock County Sheriff’s Merit Board, the Greenfield Traffic Safety Committee and the county EMS commission. He volunteered for the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and the local American Legion Post. He wrote a book on the history of the Greenfield Police Department, as well as one in memory of fallen Greenfield Police Officer Will Phillips.
Community members can pay their respects during a visitation from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday at Erlewein Mortuary, 1484 W. U.S. 40, Greenfield. A funeral service will be held on Saturday.