City of Kimball appoints Huff as Chief of Police

The City of Kimball has found a new police chief to take over the spot vacated by former Police Chief Mark Simpson.

Captain Darren Huff, who has worked in law enforcement for approximately 16 years, was approved by the City Council at their April 22 meeting to take over the Kimball Police Department as police chief.

“I had the option as the mayor of opening this up for people to apply for the position of chief of police or go within our own ranks and assign someone to that,” Mayor James Schnell said.

According to Schnell, the appointment stemmed from the observations of himself and the council of how well Huff had kept the police department running in Simpson’s absence.

“With discussion with members of the council, we noticed how well Darren has handled this whole situation for the city of Kimball, and it was thrown onto his lap and his shoulders. He had to deal with a short number of officers to provide the city of Kimball with 24 hour protection,” Schnell said.

The motion to accept the mayor’s nomination of Huff to take over the role of police chief was unanimously approved by the council.

“We will keep our police force constantly working along with the community with 24 hours of protection,” Schnell said.

Chief Huff echoed the mayor’s sentiment of constantly working along with the community, stating that he wants the department to move forward with a community based mindset.

“I want to make sure that all of my staff is going to be very much on board with my ideas and the thought process and the direction that I’d like to see us go which is going to be more community based policing. To be very, very community oriented in our policing is what I want. We have to be very community oriented,” Huff said.

This community oriented approach will entail acts big and small in order to benefit the citizens of the city, according to Huff.

“I don’t care if it’s a kid who wants help with getting his bicycle tire pumped up. If we show interest in our community, the community with reciprocate that back to us. I really would like people to see us as a department that they can go to and get help from. That’s ultimately what I think we should be all about,” Huff said.

Along with Chief Huff’s ideas pertaining to making the department more community oriented, he is already brainstorming other ways to benefit the city and the police department.

“I have a lot of good ideas and things I want to do to make Kimball a safer place and activities that we can implement in doing that and getting our resources that we already have up and running to the point that not only are we able to keep the city and the citizens in it safer but also to have better trained officers that have a lot to offer,” Huff said.