Cove Police Department promotes five

By LYNETTE SOWELL

Cove Leader-Press 

It was standing-room only on Friday afternoon when the Copperas Cove Police Department recognized the promotion of five from among their ranks.

Family, friends, and colleagues—both present and past—turned out to celebrate with the five officers. 

Officers Kevin Miller and Dominique Moore were promoted to the rank of Sergeant, while Krystal Baker, Angel Nunez, and Jacob Smith were promoted to the rank of Corporal.

All were pinned by family members or significant others and each were commended by Chief of Police Eddie Wilson for their perseverance in achieving their ranks. 

“This promotion ceremony in particular is very special to me because this is the first group of officers that were promoted under my command,” Wilson said. 

He added that another thing that made this group of five officers special was that “they’ve all failed.” Wilson offered an explanation.

“To get from point A to point B, the biggest obstacle is failure. Those of us that try, many people do fail and they don’t know how to handle it. They get upset, they find someone else to blame,” Wilson said. “Well, these five individuals have all tried to promote previously and they did not get it. So, that’s a testament to them. They buckled down, got serious, recognized their weaknesses, improved upon them, and here they are right now. 

“I would rather have someone who has failed on multiple occasions and gotten back up, than the person who’s undefeated. You guys as a community are going to get a lot more out of those individuals who have failed. As a police department, we have to be perfect. When we’re not, we’ll hear about it. Well, these five will all start hearing about it.”

He said he appreciated the fact that the five also continued to move forward, not fully knowing what the plan of their new chief would be. 

Lt. Jeffery Stoddard talked about the three-part process the five officers went through before promotion. 

“The goal is identifying the best officers for advancement. The three parts of the process are a written examination, the assessment center and the oral board. The assessment center phase of the process can be considered the most difficult. It’s emotionally and physically draining to the applicants,” he said.

Stoddard thanked the assessors involved in the process for those promoted to corporal, which included Michael Cleghorn, Public Works, City of Copperas Cove; Sgt. Michael Mohler, Leander Police Department; Sgt. Emery Stofferahn, Killeen Police Department; Sgt. Doug Taylor, Belton Police Department. 

Assessors for the sergeant promotions were Chief Michael Neujahr, Copperas Cove Fire Department; Lt. Daniel Ontivaros, Belton Police Department; Sgt. Michael Mohler, Leander Police Department; Sgt. Gary Burns (Ret.), Killeen Police Department.

After the pinning ceremony, the five promoted officers were congratulated with a brief reception.