A poker player might bet on a three-of-a-kind. The Paducah Police Department did and came out a winner.
Three generations. Three Wentworths. Three Paducah police officers. (Truth be told, it has actually been four Wentworths and four Paducah police officers, but we’ll get to that in a minute.)
In its history, the Paducah Police Department has seen several two-generation officers – most recently retired Sgt. Bruce Watson and his son, current sergeant, Travis Watson. But until now, never three.
Robert “Bob” Wentworth had no idea when he walked into the police chief ’s office one day in 1965 that he would begin a proud tradition of service that would stretch across more than 50 years. Bob’s two sons, Michael and Matthew, both proudly wore the PPD badge. Both have now retired. But it is now Bob’s grandson – Mike’s son, Jon – who puts the uniform on each day. Three generations of service to Paducah.
Bob, Mike, and Jon sat down together to talk about what’s changed – and what remains the same – in policing in Paducah.
Bob served in the U.S. Marine Corps, working with a huge data processing computer at the Marine Corps’ supply hub in California. While in California, he began working as an auxiliary police officer.
He met his first wife there, a young woman from Burna, KY, who came to California to teach school. She brought him to Western Kentucky. Bob walked into the Paducah Police Department with paperwork showing he’d completed police training in California. He walked out with a badge, #110.
Upon hearing this, his grandson, Jon, laughed. “It took me, like, six months to get hired,” he said. Things have changed.
“I had my own gun. I had my other leather [belt, holster, etc.],” Bob said. “They didn’t give me a thing except a badge and collar pins. I had two uniforms. One, I’d wear, and the other would be at the dry cleaners.”
Bob had to take a criminal law class in Kentucky, but there was no Basic Training Academy. “He policed in a different time,” his son, Mike, said. He carried a billy club and a sap. There were still call boxes downtown that officers used to check in while walking a beat. There were radios in the cruisers but no portables that the officers carried with them.
“The only ones who had walkie talkies to start with were the ones who walked Broadway,” Bob said. Those, he said, were large, box-like radios, a far cry from the small portables of today.
Bob was sent to FBI training at Quantico, VA, to learn fingerprinting and was one of the first fingerprint experts at the Paducah Police Department. He may have helped end a string of break-ins perpetrated by a man who attacked a number of women in Paducah during the late 1980s. He recalls lifting a print from a soap box at the home of an 80-year-old rape victim.
“A beautiful fingerprint came up on that box, and I said, ‘Got him,’ ” he said. The print was sent to the FBI and they got a “hit.” The suspect was arrested and convicted but never admitted any other attacks. “I was good at it. I’d do it again; I loved it. If Jon messes up, I’ll take his place,” he said, smiling.
Bob retired as a sergeant, Badge 214, on April 1, 1990. It was around that time that his eldest son, Mike, took his first steps toward a law enforcement career. He had mulled over the idea of law enforcement since he was in middle school, but his father encouraged him to take business classes. After high school graduation, Mike worked at the old Walmart on the south side.
“I knew my future wasn’t there,” he said.
In 1990, he began taking classes at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, working toward a degree in Police Administration and Management. In 1994, he got his first job in law enforcement as an officer with the Lancaster KY Police Department making $5.12 an hour.
The Basic Training Academy was 10 weeks long, and Mike got to commute because he lived so close. He said he didn’t come to Paducah because, “At that time in my life, I wanted to prove I could do this on my own.” After several months, Mike applied at the McCracken County Sheriff ’s Department. He started out there making $19,500, which is what the chief of police in Lancaster was making, he said.
But he wasn’t home yet. Mike said through the years, various Paducah officers talked to him about applying at the PPD. He waited for his broth- er, Matt, to be hired in May 2001, before he started the hiring process. “I was always pulled to Paducah [PD] because of the tradition,” he said. On November 12, 2001, Mike hired on with the Paducah Police Department as Badge #249.
Technology had moved along. “In the late ‘90s, they started throwing these MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) in [the cars],” Mike said. “Reports were still hand-written, but we would get calls on there.”
Before he retired in March 2014, Mike also saw the introduction of in-car cameras in police cruisers, issuance of less lethal devices like Tasers to all officers, and the common use of cell phones. It was during the years he worked as a detective that he had an inquisitive son at home and he found he was often on the other side of interrogations.
“Jon started asking questions when I was a detective,” Mike said. “I thought he was too young, so I sugar-coated it. But he saw through that.”
Mike and his wife tried to steer Jon away from law enforcement. So, he set his sights on physical therapy.
“Then I got to my first anatomy class and realized this was not what I wanted,” he said. “Not what I wanted at all.”
He attended school for a time, studying to be an electrician like his uncle, but eventually he came to his parents and asked for their support.
“I grew up seeing what my dad did for the community, and I saw how people appreciated him,” Jon said. “I wanted to be that guy who could help people, could change peoples’ lives, or attempt to. I knew it wasn’t all fun and games.”
And so, on June 20, 2019, Jon was hired as a Paducah police officer, Badge #380. Three generations.
As the three sat together last week, an alert tone sounded on Jon’s portable radio. Three heads turned toward it, listening. Old habits die hard.
Things change. Things stay the same. The crimes are basically the same. Many of the names are the same.
“Dad dealt with the parents, I dealt with the kids, and Jon will deal with the grandkids,” Mike said. “Like any occupation, you grow up in it; that’s what you know. It’s almost like in your DNA.”
Jon’s academy training was 20 weeks, followed by a 15-week in-house Police Training Officer Program before he was out on the street by himself. He is better equipped than his grandfather could have ever imagined, with a department-issued handgun, Taser, portable radio, bullet-resistant vest, body-worn camera, in-car camera, computer, and the like.
“You don’t know how good you’ve got it,” Bob told his grandson.
“I never dreamed I would be the start of three generations,” Bob said. “I always tried to present the right attitude. I never mistreated anybody in 20 years on the force. You got one name to take with you in your life. No sense in screwing it up.”
One name, four officers, three generations. It’s a legacy to be proud of.
By | Robin Newberry
