Veteran officer will lead Edenton Police Department

By Connie Sage

EDENTON

Before signing on as Edenton’s new police chief, Rocky Mount Police Department Sgt. Jay Fortenbery said his family took a vote.

“If they didn’t want to move, I wouldn’t have come,” said Fortenbery, 44, a 20-year veteran in Rocky Mount. “Family comes first in anything you do, and profession is second,” he said.

Fortenbery will replace retiring Chief Greg Bonner, who was on the Edenton force for 35 years and its chief for a decade. In announcing the appointment Tuesday, Edenton Town Manager Anne-Marie Knighton said she was impressed with Fortenbery’s law-enforcement philosophy – that it is an honorable profession and that police officers serve and protect with integrity.

Knighton said he takes over as the town’s top cop in January pending a physical examination and transfer of his law enforcement certificate. Fortenbery was one of more than 60 applicants, Knighton said.

Since joining the Rocky Mount Police Department, Fortenbery has been a patrolman, has worked on the department’s drug task force and was a detective handling general and burglary cases, as well as major crimes and juvenile crimes. He also was a communications supervisor in the city’s communications center and a supervisor in the department’s patrol division.

How would his colleagues describe him?

“I’d hope they’d say I’m a nice guy, trustworthy, honest, dependable,” he said. “I teach firearms and a lot of classes inbasic law enforcement.”

Fortenbery hails from a police force with about 170 employees, compared to Edenton’s 16. Rocky Mount is about 75 miles west of here and is located in both Edgecombe and Nash counties.

He said that while the Edenton area’s population is 10 times smaller than Rocky Mount’s, he doesn’t expect moving to a smaller force to be a big adjustment.

“Every town has a lot of the same crime problems,” he said.

Fortenbery said he plans to attend community and civic group meetings to “find out what the challenges are and what the community wants to make the citizens feel safe and improve the quality of life.”

Fortenbery said he has “always wanted to be a chief somewhere in Eastern North Carolina.”

“I saw Edenton was looking for a chief. I visited the town, rode around for a couple of days, visited the department, asked questions and really fell in love with the town.”

He said he and his wife, Mysi and son, Skye, a high school freshman, plan to live in Edenton once their home is sold.