CPL. HERBST TO LEAVE CAPE'S POLICE FORCE

For five years one police officer has defined community policing in Cape Girardeau. As he leaves the department this month to take a marketing job in Jackson, Corporeal Charlie Herbst will leave behind a legacy that will be difficult to top.

"You don't replace a police officer like Charlie Herbst," said Police Chief Rick Hetzel. "What he has accomplished in community policing has been invaluable."

Herbst and his partner Ike Hammonds have a dossier of accomplishments that is more than 28 pages long.

In the past five years, Herbst has been involved in activities such as home visits to elderly crime victims, home visits to teen-agers at request of parents and teachers, participated in Neighborhood Advisory Council meetings, helped in planning and implementation of U.S. Attorney Janet Reno's Weed and Seed Initiative and helped organize trips for sixth graders to see basketball games at Southeast Missouri State University.

Herbst joined the police force in 1989 and began his community policing efforts five years ago. He has a degree in business and has taken a job at Innovative Idea Integration in Jackson.

Leaving the department does not mean he will stop being involved with the community. He said he plans to continue to serve on community boards and plans to be part of the police reserve unit.

But he will miss the daily routine that comes with being a police officer as well as the respect the position commands.

"The benefit of being a police officer is that I can just about go anywhere I want and be welcomed," Herbst said. "You just kind of have an instant trust level when you are wearing the uniform."

He said he will miss the children in the schools and neighborhoods that he helped the most. Herbst said he developed a relationship with so many of them that it will be difficult not being around them everyday.

"You have to care about the kids," Herbst said. "You have to care about the community."

He said it also takes patience. He recalled an instance when two neighbors were having a dispute about a fence dividing their properties.

"Normally we just take a report and let the courts decide," Herbst said. "But the problem is still there. We are there to take it one step further and work toward a problem resolution. It took us three months to solve that problem."

He said it takes diligence and hard work to get angry people to reach a compromise. But it is all part of the job of a community policeman -- a job description he hopes his replacement will realize.

"This is not an eight-hour job," Herbst said. "You go to meetings at night. You get phone calls at home. I put a lot of myself into this job."