LYNN — Besides his brief dream of being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Police Lt. Rick Connick was certain about what he wanted to do with his life.
“I never wanted to be an astronaut, I never wanted to be a cowboy. I just wanted to be a police officer,” Connick said.
His desire to help people is why he became a police officer, and he has been doing that for 13 years in the Police Department. Now, Connick hopes to continue helping people in his new role as the public information officer (PIO), a role in which he sends information out to the public through the press and social media.
“I think that’s one of the cornerstones of why every police officer does it,” Connick, who is also in charge of internal affairs, said. “You have to really have a passion for it, wanting to help people… that can’t help themselves, get justice for people. Those were all really important things to me.”
Before being promoted to this role, the Lynn native was in charge of the bike unit for two years, and was a patrol officer before that. Directly interacting with the community on a regular basis while on the bike unit helped prepare him for his responsibilities as the PIO, he said.
“Just being out there, on the street and actually engaging with people, it’s prepared me in the sense that it’s not a face-to-face interaction now, but the same message that I was giving people when I was on the street is now what we’re trying to project out to a larger audience,” Connick said.
To reach that larger audience, the department is leaning into social media, which Connick said his predecessor, Lt. Michael Kmiec, created a good foundation for.
“I’d like the public to know that the Lynn Police Department has an extensive history of community engagement that even predates my career,” Connick said. “My role on the bike team was focused on this initiative and I will continue this outreach, via our social media, to keep the public informed.”
The department’s social-media pages reach around 120,000 people each week, and Connick said they are used for public-safety messages, traffic alerts, and more. He said that those posts are the only way that many people interact with the police.
“A lot of times, people’s interactions with officers is during a really bad time in their life, which is not what we want, we want to build a relationship with people so people can come to us for help, but not the only interaction be during a crisis situation,” Connick said.
Stepping into the role of the PIO has been a big transition from the bike unit, he said.
“It’s a lot different than what I was doing. I enjoyed what I did before, I think we had a huge impact, I really do,” Connick said. “But I was thankful to get put into this position because I think it is a really critical role, it helps the public in a different way.”
While he wants to make himself available to the public as much as possible, he said the best way to reach the department for immediate assistance is to call 911 for emergencies and 781-595-2000 for non-emergency matters.
