Ready For Retirement

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Wednesday, 3 April 2019 06:50

Police Chief, Bill Renton (Courtesy: Woodstock Police Service)

Chief Bill Renton is retiring after 9 years in Woodstock, spending the last 5 as the Chief.

WOODSTOCK - The Woodstock Police will be saying goodbye to their leader in June.

Chief Bill Renton is retiring after 9 years in Woodstock, spending the last 5 as the Chief. And while he is looking forward to his retirement, there are some things he is really going to miss.

"We have some really incredible people working here, really hard working, dedicated people here at the service, a great senior administration, a good services board, city council has been great, city staffers, so yeah, I will really miss the people here."

Renton says the one thing he will not miss about the job is the human resource issues, things like budgeting, discipline, accommodations, those sort of things. Renton spent his first four years in Woodstock as an Inspector, before being promoted to Chief. He says he is proud of the work they have done during his time as leader.

"I'm really proud of the way we have been able to handle some of those big, major international type of investigations, we have had some of the biggest ones in the Country. I have often said that we are small but we are mighty, we can tailor service delivery for the City, that meets the needs of Woodstock and deal with the big things. I'm very proud of the fact that we have worked hard on succession planning, we have developed our people to be able to take the next steps. We have worked very hard on wellness, policing is a very difficult, stressful environment, so we continue to work with the association and the board to work and enhance wellness initiatives, so I am proud of that."

Renton plans to spend his retirement travelling with his wife Sue and spending more time with his kids and grandkids.

Chief Renton has been with the Woodstock Police Service since July 1st, 2010 where he started as the Inspector of Operations. He probably best known for his lead role as Major Case Manager in the high profile Tori Stafford investigation in 2009. Over 900 officers from across the province were involved in the multi-jurisdictional investigation, which received not only national, but also international media coverage.

Renton came to WPS with over 18 years of municipal policing experience working with the former Haldimand-Norfolk Regional Police Service, followed by 12 years with the OPP, when he retired as a Detective Inspector.

Chief Renton was the Major Case Manager for a number of other headline crimes including the Douglas Creek Estates native occupation in Caledonia from 2006-2008. His experience also greatly assisted the recent multi-jurisdictional investigation by Woodstock, London Police and the OPP in the long-term care home investigation of murderous Woodstock nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer.

Renton was promoted to the Chief of Police in 2015 after the retirement of Rod Freeman. He has also received the Order of Merit for Police Services by the Governor General which is the highest form of professional recognition given to serving police officers in Canada.