New Monte Vista police chief sworn in

MONTE VISTA— John Rosecrans has officially been welcomed as the new chief of police for the Monte Vista Police Department. An officer with 19 years of law enforcement experience, US Army special forces veteran and a former police commander, he took the oath of office on Thursday, Sept. 21.
Rosecrans is originally from northern Colorado and grew up in very small Red Feather Lakes. He attended high school in Fort Collins and college at Colorado State University-Fort Collins earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He is working on obtaining a master’s degree from Colorado State University-Global Campus.
Rosecrans has a significant other and he hopes she and their children will join him in Monte Vista soon. He enjoys shooting and working-out like most police officers. He is an outdoors enthusiast who loves to hunt, fish and snowmobile.
After five years in the military, he worked three as an assembly line manager for Burris Sports Optics, a company which produces rifle scope and binoculars. Rosecrans then decided to attend the police academy.
Upon graduation from the police academy Rosecrans was offered a job with several different departments but has spent all of his career up to this point with Northglenn Police Department.
He was a patrol officer for seven years, a sergeant for 10 and a commander for three. He has experience in community relations, patrol, motorcycle units, traffic, support, SWAT, supervision, records and equipment.
Rosecrans has also been highly developed professionally taking hundreds of hours of police leadership courses. He hopes to be able to attend courses with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the future.
There are several reasons Rosecrans felt called to enter the police profession. “I feel being a police officer is continued service to the community. My biggest draw is that it’s something different every day. I’m not tied to a desk and am not just putting bolts together. It’s always something different and the calls are different. I like being in uniform, the rules structure fits my personality. It takes a certain type of person to do this job for a long period of time, not to become callous about certain aspects and to see the good not just the bad. It’s one of the most honorable jobs out there,” said Rosecrans.
Rosecrans’ policing philosophy is to find other solutions to problems rather than just placing more people in the criminal justice system. “The philosophy is two fold. One is we have to get the community involved and be positive. When the community is involved this synergy is built that help affects trust and understanding, and we also understand how we are affecting the public.
It’s also more important that we focus less on the arrest of an individual and more on the application of how do we get a problem person to self-comply with the law. That might be pressure from the community, education or creating more of a fear of what the system can do.
Really it might mean making their life uncomfortable. Somehow there has to be other measures. It might be shutting off their water, constantly contacting people that go in and out of their house because they are associated with them, and making the public aware that they are part of the problem through things such as the police report,” said Rosecrans.

“We’re going to be very honest with criminals. We’re going to say you’re a problem for the city. We don’t want you here, the citizens don’t want you here, administration doesn’t want you here, and if you continue to do things that are contrary to the law and the morals and ethics of the residents we’re going to find ways to make your life less comfortable and make you not want to live here,” he said.
Rosecrans is excited to begin his new job and understands the small community nature. “I really hope that we can get the community more involved. I think Monte Vista is a really great city...Given the resources that the city has I think they do an excellent job of supporting their citizens. There’s a great group of people that work for and in the city that want to see everything thrive. We’re like a big family and sometimes there will be disagreements. When that happens we need to make sure we talk to each other. We need to do it in a positive way and not a destructive way,” said Rosecrans.


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