Warren police officers promoted to top positions

Staff report

WARREN

After more than 20 years with the Warren Police Department, Jeff Cole and Joe Kistler were promoted to top leadership positions.

Cole took the oath of office to be captain, one of the three top positions in the department, and Kistler was promoted to lieutenant, the next highest rank.

It means Cole, who started with the department in 1994 after graduating from Youngstown’s South High School in 1981, is in charge of three shifts full of road-patrol officers.

Cole says he has always tried to be accessible to the public as detective, internal-affairs officer and in other positions.

“I will remain accessible,” he said, adding that he plans to continue to lead the department, especially in regard to the years-long process of addressing civil-rights issues raised by the U.S. Justice Department.

Kistler, who joined the department in 1995, has been officer in charge of the detective bureau in his most recent assignment, which means he supervises three other detectives and two crime scene/evidence detectives, but it means he also works as a detective.

It’s a challenge to investigate the amount of crime Warren has with a staff that small, but detectives also have taken the lead on cases outside of the city such as the 2016 double homicide at Shorty’s Place tavern in Warren Township and the killing of Brandon Sample, 22, of Warren in June in Bristol Township.