Community Profile: Police Chief Ed Turner

by Cole Arndorfer


After serving nearly 25 years with the Independence Police Department, Ed Turner returned to Grain Valley at the end of February to serve as the new Chief of Police.

Turner got his start in law enforcement as an officer at the Grain Valley Police Department in 1995.

“For me, I felt like it was a calling,” Turner said of the law enforcement field. “I found myself in situations growing up, trying to keep the peace between friends in different situations. I didn’t even know I was doing it at the time but eventually I was drawn to the work after having exposure to it.”

After a couple years in Grain Valley, Turner took a job with the Independence Police Department. While in Independence, Turner gained a wide variety of knowledge of many different aspects of the department from administrative management and community outreach to hands on police work.

While with the Independence Police Department, Turner worked his way up to the rank of Major. In this role, he established various community groups that were able to communicate with him any time they needed to help keep up a positive connection with the community.

As Turner got more involved with the community, he found himself being drawn more and more to the community interaction aspect than the tactical side of police work.

In Turner’s eyes, he believes that having a relationship with the community is one of the most important functions of police work.

“The baseline for policing is having a relationship to build on with the community,” said Turner. “We’re not able to accomplish much of anything without the community trusting us, feeling like they can reach out to us, and connecting with us.”

Some of his biggest accomplishments as a law enforcement officer has been building strong relationships with those who did not have a favorable view of police or had bad experiences with them. Turner says that he welcomes those people with unfavorable thoughts and views so he can grow, learn, and understand where they might be coming from.

Grain Valley is a unique place, according to Turner. He said though Grain Valley is a quickly growing city, it still has a small-town feel. With the city being a suburb of Kansas City and situated right along I-70, Turner said the department not only handles the normal smaller occurrences that are to be expected but also some situations that one would expect in a bigger city.

Chief Turner said that one of his biggest goals is to partner with the community members and different groups in order to create an open dialogue and focus on community-oriented policing to help foster a safe and welcoming community. Another one of his goals is to use technology to improve their ability to solve problems in the city. Turner said that departments across the state and country are increasing their uses of technology in order increase their effectiveness in the communities they serve and that Grain Valley is going to follow that trend.

Chief Turner expressed gratitude over his role as Chief of Police and said that he feels blessed that he is able to serve the Grain Valley community once again.

“It’s a great community, a great school district, and there’s a lot of people that want to be here. When you have people desiring to be in a community, there’s an interest to be involved in it so I feel blessed,” Turner said.

After serving nearly 25 years with the Independence Police Department, Ed Turner returned to Grain Valley at the end of February to serve as the new Chief of Police. Photo credit: Cole Arndorfer