New Police Chief Kellie Bauss Making Her Mark on Clawson Community
(Mary Dupuis, July 30, 2023)
Clawson, MI – Clawson’s new police chief, Kellie Bauss, has made history in the city as the first woman to take on the role.
History was in the making for quite some time, as the inspiration for her career path struck when she was very young.
Bauss grew up in Eastpointe and said she was drawn towards the field through her family members and their experiences working in law enforcement.
When Bauss was a child, her mother worked for Child Protective Services (CPS) as a child abuse investigator and her uncle and cousin were members of the secret service.
“I think just the whole investigation side of things has always been intriguing to me,” Bauss said. I come from a law enforcement family…I think just listening to (my uncle and cousin’s) stories growing up has always fascinated me. So I’ve wanted to be a police officer since I was a little kid.”
Bauss went on to pursue this dream at Adrian College where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminal justice. From there, she attended the Macomb Police Academy and graduated in 2004.
Before applying to work in Clawson, Bauss worked at the Department of Corrections in Detroit for about six months.
She began in Clawson as a patrol officer and loved the small town feel that came along with her move.
“I knew this was a cute little town and it just felt so homey to me coming from Adrian College, which is a very small college and had the same kind of feel,” Bauss said. “I knew that I didn’t want to go to a really big organization, even though that’s for some people. I just knew it wasn’t a fit for me, and so this just really felt right.”
Even though she was new to Clawson, Bauss was familiar with the area, as she had worked in her father’s past business in Madison Heights and visited his current business in Troy.
Bauss said Clawson has one of the lowest crime rates not only in Oakland County, but in the entire state, which they’re very proud of. Most crimes she and her team of officers handle are fraud, domestic violence or driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.
In order to help mitigate the crime that Clawson does experience, Bauss said she has requested bringing in at least one Flock surveillance camera. The cameras record license plate numbers, and compare them to a database to identify vehicles that are tied to missing people, criminal investigations, and arrest warrants. They can also be reviewed if there is a crime in the area, to help identify potential suspects. These cameras are already in use in several cities in Oakland County and across the country.
“I do feel like they are very valuable for a community not just in solving crime, but when people go missing or if you just need assistance with something with investigations,” Bauss said.
Bodycam usage is also something Bauss is a big proponent of, and has been for years, as she completed a staff study on bodycam usage through Northwestern University at their School of Police Staff and Command in 2015.
Bodycams have been in use in the Clawson Police Department for a few years now.
“They’re great, we love them,” Bauss said. “I think everybody here loves them. We don’t really have any complaints about bodycam usage. Transparency is the most important thing in policing today, or one of the most important things, and it helps us be transparent.
In order to best respond to community members’ needs, particularly those who may require a mental health response, Bauss has worked make Clawson Police an accredited agency.
In order to reach this status, officers needed to attend training through the Oakland County Health Network to become Crisis Intervention Trained (CIT) officers. Currently Bauss and three other officers in the station have this training.
Bauss is also having a peer support team brought to the department to ensure the officers are at the top of their mental game.
“The reason I think that is important is because research shows at any given time, 25% of your employees are experiencing something personal, that is impacting them,” Bauss said. “So if it’s impacting them, it’s likely going to, at some point, impact their work. If it impacts their work, it impacts the service they can provide to the community. So in order for us to be our best for our people, we need to have services for us, too.”
The department also makes efforts to become more involved in the community through a number of programs.
One opportunity Bauss was particularly proud to highlight was their scholarship program, which has given away over $60,000 to students interested in studying criminal justice at a university or college.
The only qualifications needed to apply are that the student must either live in Clawson or attend Clawson High School.
In addition to this, the department does polar plunges and torch runs for the Special Olympics, toy drives for Christmas and backpack drives for students going back to school.
Some educational programs offered for the community are bike safety, what to know about fraud and how to protect oneself from it, and what to do when stopped by an officer.
Bauss doesn’t just work to make the Clawson community a safer, more welcoming environment for all, she does the very same for the police department.
She said before she began at Clawson, there were only a few female officers in the department, who didn’t stay for more than a year before they moved on to a larger agency.
Due to this, the station had a men’s locker room, but didn’t have a permanent women’s locker room.
Instead, when she needed a locker room, Bauss had to walk over to Clawson City Hall and use a bathroom they had turned into a locker room for her.
“I complained about that for years,” Bauss said. “I knew it was against federal law. I just didn’t want to make that big of a deal out of it.”
Today, there is a new locker room under construction that will be separated for men and for women.
Bauss said as she became a supervisor and had to supervise men, she noticed the station didn’t have a formal briefing room, as the briefs had always ended up being done in the men’s locker room.
“When I became a supervisor and had to actually brief them, it was a matter of standing outside their locker room and talking to them,” Bauss said. “Or then, later, requiring them to come to me, to an office. Just making some adjustments that I didn’t really think were fair.”
In her new role as police chief, Bauss has set a goal to improve the station for the women working at the Clawson Police Department in the future.
“A couple of years ago, I just kind of thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to fight for the people who are going to work here after me,’” Bauss said. “Because at that point, I had been there like 15 years, so it didn’t really matter to me that much anymore. But I just didn’t think it was a fair practice.”
Bauss said as she came into her new role, she was nervous about the lack of other female police chiefs in the area. However, she said the current chiefs have proven to be “absolutely wonderful” to work with as she builds relationships across the region.
Learn more about Clawson Police at https://www.cityofclawson.com/your_government/police_department/index.php.
