‘The highest honor’: Monroe police chief retiring after decades with department

MONROE, N.C. — It’s the end of an era for the Monroe Police Department.

Chief Bryan Gilliard is retiring this month after 32 years with the department. He served the last 11 years as chief.

Channel 9′s Gina Esposito recently sat down with him and learned what he hopes will be his legacy.

Chief Gilliard said his grandmother pinned his badge when he joined the department as an officer in 1995.

‘The highest honor’: Monroe police chief retiring after decades with department Chief Bryan Gilliard is retiring this month after 32 years with the department.

Born and raised in Union County, he said it was an unexpected career choice.

“I was going to be a special education teacher, and that kind of changed over to being a history teacher and changed into being a dispatcher. You never know where life’s going to take you,” Gilliard said.

Gilliard said when he first started, he worked for Monroe Public Safety where police and fire ran calls together.

When the agency split and the Monroe Police Department was formed in 2000, he moved to narcotics and rose through the ranks until he officially became chief in 2014.

Gilliard said some of his biggest accomplishments have been a reflection of Monroe’s growth. He helped open the Bobby G. Kilgore law enforcement center in 2023.

And what he hopes to be his legacy – the new technology and incentives he got for officers who now have educational and community service opportunities to earn pay raises.

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“We’ve been very fortunate with the family atmosphere we built here over the last few years that we only had one officer leave to go to another agency in the last 18 months,” Gilliard said.

Of course, it hasn’t been without hard times. Among them, the 1997 murder conviction of former Monroe Police Officer Joshua Griffin. And the death of Officer Paul Perrette in 2017 – the school resource officer who died in a motorcycle accident.

“Our community here in Monroe. They always rally around this police department and I think that’s something. That, you can’t take for granted because not everywhere gets to experience that.”

Gilliard said he’s known many of his officers for years and they too have a personal investment in the community.

He said that relationship, and serving the community he grew up in, has proven to be important time and time again.

“I think that’s one of the blessings of having this job, is being able to be the chief in your community, in your hometown. Because everybody talks about community policing, everybody talks about how you can go and serve your community but being able to actually do it and be a member of the community that you serve – I think that’s just the highest honor that that you could ever have,” Gilliard said.

In his retirement, Chief Gilliard said he plans to golf, go the beach, and farm in Union County. He’s excited about the new leadership and said its opportunity for officers to move into new roles.

Assistant Police Chief William “Rhett” Bolen will take over as Monroe Police Chief effective April 11.

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