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A Brief History of the City of Libby Police Department

The City of Libby's first police department was organized in about 1914 and operated in 1981.  At that time the City of Libby elected to contract law enforcement services with Lincoln County.  In 1996, the city council decided, due to the escalating cost of the contract and the service being provided, to restore the Libby Police Department.  On June 20, 1996, Clay Coker, deputy with Lincoln County, was hired by the City of Libby as Chief of Police and was given the task of forming a police department.  Brent Teske was hired a few days later as the first officer (Teske was with the department until 2005).  On the morning of  July l, 1996, they donned the blue uniforms and began their careers with the City of Libby Police Department.

During the month of July three additional officers were hired and on August 1, 1996, the Libby Police Department was in full operation with five officers.

Establishing a new department was difficult at first, since there was nothing left of the previous department.  The city was able to get two cars from the county and remark them as City Police cars.  Then two very used surplus patrol cars were purchased from the Montana Highway Patrol.  Chief Coker was the only officer with any prior law enforcement experience.  All the other officers were brand new to the profession and had to attend the police academy.  This put quite a burden on the department in manpower, and there were many months of long hours, no vacations, double shifts, and on the job training.

In 1997, the department applied for and received a federal grant to hire a sixth officer.  This brought the strength of the department up to where it could provide twenty four hour coverage and allow officers to use some vacation days.

June 30th, 1999, marked the conclusion of the third year of operation.  Many things had been accomplished by this department in a short period of time.  The officers were driving new black and white patrol cars.   The offices had moved back to the original department offices at 603 Mineral Avenue.  An innovative program was developed when a grant was received from Pacific Power for the purchase of the first of two police bicycles used for patrol.  A downtown foot patrol had been started, also.

 In 1999, Chief Coker received authorization from the City Council to purchase an Automatic Electronic Defibrillation unit for the department.  Legislation had given authorization for First Responders, (i.e. trained law enforcement personnel), to utilize this technology.  The Libby Police Department purchased this equipment, they were the first law enforcement agency in the state to deploy this equipment to First Responders.