Retiring Marion police chief went on a ride-along that changed his life

MARION — After 38 years in law enforcement and holding jobs that took him from Memphis, Tenn., to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, to Marion, Iowa, Marion Police Chief Mike Kitsmiller is retiring.

“I feel like I’ve done my time,” he told The Gazette this week. “We've been fortunate that, from a money standpoint, we can afford for me to retire. I've enjoyed it, and I'll miss the people, but it's just time to let somebody else have a turn.”

The city of Marion announced Thursday that Kitsmiller, who has been the chief for just over five years, would be retiring in April and that the city has hired a recruitment firm to help find his successor.

  Buy Photo

Kitsmiller said he was drawn to law enforcement after meeting several police officers in Columbia, Mo., while working at a bar down the street from the Columbia Police Department.

“It was kind of the hangout for the cops when they got off work, and I got to talking with some of them, and went for a ride along. I was kind of hooked from there,” he said.Police work, FBI

At the time, Kitsmiller, now 61, was studying agriculture economics at the University of Missouri. He finished the degree but never used it, at least not directly.

First stop: Memphis

Kitsmiller returned to Memphis, where he’d grown up, and applied to join Memphis Police Department. He was hired.

He held various positions in his 11 years with the Memphis department, including serving on a robbery task force organized with the local FBI office after the city saw almost 80 bank robberies in one year, he said.

“The agent in charge of the division came up to me one day and he said, ‘Why don't you put it and be an agent?’ My kids were little, and my wife and I talked about it. We said, ‘Let's give it a shot,.’ ”

His first position as an FBI agent was in Cedar Rapids, though he moved around a lot, including a stint in Iraq during the Gulf War. He was part of the FBI force involved in investigating the case against Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, when he was convicted of crimes against humanity and hung.

“Iraq was definitely different,” he said. “I mean, it was an active war zone. We were in Abu Ghraib when the Second Battle of Fallujah was going on (in 2004), and that's like 20 miles from where we were. It was a different rodeo.”

Kitsmiller served in multiple leadership positions with the FBI, including as a supervisor over three offices in Iowa, and an assistant agent in charge in Omaha.

He was in that position until he was about two years shy of being eligible to retire from the FBI, and a position opened up in the FBI’s Waterloo office. His daughter had just moved back to Iowa with her daughter, and Kitsmiller and his wife had been planning to move to Iowa after he retired.

“I told my wife, ‘We can let the government pay for the move, and I’ll just step down out of management.’ So that’s what we did,” he said.

  Buy Photo

Coming to Marion

A couple of years later, Kitsmiller was working with some Marion police officers on a case when someone mentioned the Marion police chief was leaving and that he should apply for the job.

The timing was good since he’d just become eligible to retire from the FBI with full benefits. He applied and was hired in September 2019.

Kitsmiller’s first year with the department presented challenges. First came the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, followed by the August 2020 derecho and the protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Kitsmiller said that he felt his relationship with the Marion police officers was strengthened because of those challenges.

“It’s stuff like that, though, that pulls people closer together,” Kitsmiller said. “When you can go through that, the other stuff that may be an uncomfortable conversation is pretty easy to have because you know they got your back and you got their back.”

Tom Daubs, the Marion department’s public information officer and school resource officer, said he remembers being surprised when Kitsmiller was hired but that he’s been impressed with the chief’s style of leadership.

“I remember thinking, ‘No, it’s not going to be the FBI guy,’ because I didn’t know, really, anything about the FBI,” Daubs said. “But I can tell you, I have appreciated working with him and just getting to know him. I am so glad they went with the FBI guy. ... He knows how to read a room and what’s going to be the best thing.”

Kitsmiller was earning a $147,527 salary this year.

Looking ahead

Kitsmiller said he believes the police department — with 45 sworn officers and 15 civilian employees — is in a good place right now, and he’s excited to see what the next chief brings to the table.

“Everybody’s got their own leadership styles, but I think I've always done well going in with the understanding that I am not the smartest person in the room,” Kitsmiller said.

As for his own next steps, Kitsmiller said he’s excited at having time with his family.

He said he may do investigative consulting work in the future, but he doesn’t want to focus on finding more work to do unless “I can find a job cutting grass on a golf course. If I can do that in exchange for greens fees, I’d probably do that.”

“I've been very fortunate. I've had some friends that didn't make it and were killed, and so I do feel blessed. Part of it is, you get older, you just don't want to press your luck anymore,” Kitsmiller said.

“For a cop to be able to go out upright, under your own power and on your own terms, is about as good as it gets.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com