Lansdale council quiet for now on police chief departure

Borough officials are keeping quiet so far in the face of the pending departure of the town’s police chief.

“Following this meeting, council will go into the caucus room for an executive session, on matters of personnel. No action will be taken, following that,” said council President Mary Fuller.

On Tuesday night, Norristown’s borough council voted to hire current Lansdale chief Mike Trail to be that department’s next police leader, with a starting date of Nov. 3. The action ended a search that began with the departure of Norristown’s prior chief earlier this year.

After roughly a decade of work as a police officer in Baltimore and a brief stint as a stockbroker, Trail has worn the uniform in Lansdale since 2002, working his way up from patrolman, to detective, patrol supervisor, sergeant, then acting chief after the retirement of prior Chief Robert McDyre in summer 2017 and being named permanent chief in March 2018.

During that last vacancy, council hired an outside firm to conduct a search of candidates across the country, then ultimately settled on the in-house candidate, with then-council President Denton Burnell calling it “a long and arduous process” and saying “Mike was the clear number one out of that process.” Fuller, who was council VP at that time, said that search and a similar one for the town’s borough manager, “was worth the time, and effort, and expense,” and said she was “confident, after all this time and the entire process, that we have selected the best choice for this borough.”

    Lansdale police Lieutenant Ryan Devlin, right, and Sgt. Rich Bubnis pose for a photo during the department’s annual award ceremony in 2019. (Credit: Lansdale Police Department)
  

    Lansdale police Chief Mike Trail, Detective Joel Greco and Lieutenant Ryan Devlin worked the grill during a July 4 celebration in 2024. (Credit: Lansdale Police Department)
  

As interim chief, Trail started a Twitter account and pushed residents toward the Facebook page for the department, while overseeing the local response to local events and celebrations in town following the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory. As the permanent leader, Trail reimplemented the town’s parking permit system in 2019, headed up the department’s response to the pandemic in 2020, then led interactions with protestors and advocacy groups that summer, asking council to approve changes to the town’s police hiring practices and the adoption of body-worn cameras by officers.

In 2023 the department began a grant-funded program to hire a mental health coresponder who aids police on emergency calls. That coresponder has since given several reports on those interactions and their successes, while Trail led the department to secure state accreditation status in 2022.

No officials directly referred to the outgoing chief or his tenure during the Aug  20 council meeting, but borough Mayor Garry Herbert said in an email that it’s been “my honor to work alongside Chief Trail for the last eight years” after the hiring by Norristown was confirmed.

“Chief Trail’s vision for progressive and community based policing helped usher in the lowest crime rate Lansdale has seen in decades. During his time as Chief we managed a pandemic, navigated the institution of body worn cameras, and made Lansdale Police a PLEAC (Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Committee) certified organization. I am extremely proud of everything we have achieved together and I wish him all the best as he takes on his next challenge in Norristown,” Herbert said.

Next in line?

For roughly four months following McDyre’s retirement in March 2017,  the acting chief role was held by then-lieutenant Alex Kromdyk, the first officer to fill that rank following a departmental restructuring finalized in 2016 that was meant to create a clear step between the department’s chief and sergeants that Kromdyk had been overseeing while technically holding the same rank. After Kromdyk’s own retirement in July 2017, that rank has been filled twice, with two officers who have risen through the ranks themselves.

In April 2018 Ryan Devlin was Trail’s first choice for promotion to lieutenant, and at the time Trail called him “a great sounding board, a person I could rely on, to have confidence in, to vet the things we do.”

A Lansdale native who joined the department in 1996, Devlin has acted as a field training officer, D.A.R.E. officer, team leader on the North Penn Tactical Team, and on the department’s drug and DUI task forces, was promoted to sergeant in 2011, and has since acted as the department’s accreditation officer as the PD secured that status in 2022.

In 2023 a second lieutenant was promoted, this one a groundbreaker: Adrienne Gori had been the department’s first female sergeant since a 2016 promotion, and joined the department in 2000 after graduating from the Delaware County Police Academy as valedictorian of her class the year before.

She has served as a special detective with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office drug task force, and as the department’s liaison for youth aid issues and child customer safety technician, and has earned numerous merit commendations related to cases of homicide, burglary, armed robbery, and sexual assaults, the chief said at the time.

Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 3 with the public safety committee next meeting at 6:30 p.m. that night; for more information visit www.Lansdale.org and for more on the police department follow “Lansdale Borough Police Department ” on Facebook.

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