Hot Springs Assistant Police Chief Chris Chapmond, a 20-year veteran of the department, survived a difficult childhood but refused to be "a product of my environment," he told a capacity crowd gathered Tuesday for the 28th annual Garland County Leadership Prayer Breakfast.
"Scholars and scientists say you're a product of your environment, but I'm just a little stubborn and don't always believe what I'm told," Chapmond said. "I had a very rough background but I refused to allow it to dictate who I am today."
In introducing Chapmond to the crowd at Horner Hall in the Hot Springs Convention Center, Police Chief Jason Stachey noted, "He has a heart for God and his community. He not only talks the talk, he walks the walk," and "epitomizes the philosophy of a service heart."
Chapmond said his parents divorced when he was young and "as was traditional in the 1970s, my mother got custody. That's just the way it was." He said his mother and stepfather "had a tremendously different philosophy on life" where "using and dealing drugs was the path they chose," resulting in him and his brother being "very neglected, to say the least."
"It was really tough. I'm sure they loved me in their own very strange way, but it was difficult to see as a child."
He said his first encounter with police occurred when he was 4 or 5 years old while living on North Patterson Street. "I was sitting in the middle of the floor playing with my cowboys and indians. The plastic ones that came in a bag. I had about 150 of them, so there was an epic battle going on."
He said the door flew open and "in come these police officers screaming and hollering. They were there to serve a narcotics search warrant on my mother and stepfather. I don't remember being scared. I was mad because they had stepped in the middle of my epic battle."
He said an officer carried him outside and put him in a police car and he remembered the blue lights "flashing in the night," but didn't remember being scared. "That bothers me because even at that young age I had seen so much already I wasn't scared and that's wrong."
His only relief were "random escapes" to his father's and grandmother's house on the weekends, when his mother and stepfather allowed him to go because they were busy "selling dope and partying." His said his grandmother "instilled a lot of love in me and taught me a lot of good things," taking him to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, but he always ended up back with his mother.
Everything finally changed after his mother slapped him during an argument because he refused to change his name to his stepfather's. "I packed up everything I had into a black garbage bag and left. There was no court battle. She didn't fight for me," he said, noting he spent the rest of his school years with his grandmother.
Chapmond said he found "comfort and love and a normal life" and started playing sports and even coached his first Optimist League basketball team when he was only 16 after a coach told him, "You ought to be giving back to your community." He would later go on to be president of the Optimist Club.
He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1989, turning 18 in boot camp, and served with an infantry unit in the first Gulf War. "I really grew up in the military," he said. "Those were some of the most formative years of my life. I learned principles I still use today."
After his service, he started his own construction company, building houses, until the events of Feb. 12, 1996, changed his life forever. He said his uncle by marriage, Chris Anderson, who was a Hot Springs police officer, was shot and killed while on duty.
Chapmond said he and Anderson's wife, Cathy, and daughter, Amanda, went through the funeral process with the police department, noting, "(Officers) were there every single day, it felt like every hour." He recalled riding in the hearse with Amanda after the funeral and seeing police cars "as far north and south as I could see" on Central Avenue and "seeing people on the side of the road paying their respects to this man who served their community."
He said, "I felt my heart being pulled. Maybe this is where God wants me. I hadn't felt that pull since I was in the service." He said he called Cathy Anderson to get her blessing and "without hesitating for a moment," she supported his decision to join the police department and he was hired that summer.
"That's a God thing," he said, noting he has worked in every division and "done pretty much every job at the police department. It didn't take me long to realize how important first responders are to this community. They stand in the gap between you and chaos."
He recalled several years later when he learned his mother had died of an overdose in De Queen and went there. "She was living in a single-wide trailer with the floor fallen through. A typical drug house. I often reflect if I hadn't left that day when I did maybe that would be me. I would have still been there."
Because of his background, Chapmond said his years spent as the coordinator for the 18th Judicial District East Drug Task Force were "the high point of my career. It was something I was passionate about, out there fighting the drug culture."
He recalled a quote a friend posted on Instagram, "'Never regret a day in your life. Good days give happiness, bad days give experiences, worse days give lessons, and your best days give memories.'
"I have learned from everything that has occurred in my life, good and bad," he said. "I hope today I am a better person than I was yesterday and I hope I learn something today that makes me a better person tomorrow. I think we should all strive to do that. To be better, better at your job, with your families, your friends and at serving your community."
Local on 10/04/2017