In an effort to bring the Tiverton Police Department on par with international accreditation standards, 12 officers were promoted last week.

Chief Thomas Blakey reassigned duties to accompany the rank promotions, but largely the personnel makeup will remain the same.

"This promotion gets us in line to start a movement to make Tiverton a not only state, but nationally recognized law enforce agency for professionalism and excellence," said Capt. Patrick W. Jones, the department's executive officer. "It is the fervent hope of the police chief that the town and its citizens will support the police department in this venture."

The shake up in ranking and allocation of duties is first step toward transforming Tiverton into a model police department in terms of training, degrees of professionalism, the structure of command staff, and the allocation of duties.

"Officers involved in these promotions accepted these positions, along with added responsibility for no additional pay.," said Jones. "These ranks were created to allow the police department to be in line with modern law enforcement agencies and to continue to move the department towards achieving accreditation.

Promotions and Duties:

• Lt. Patrick W. Jones promoted to Captain – Executive Officer
• Sgt. James Costa promoted to Lieutenant – Day shift watch commander
• Sgt. Scott Beaulieu promoted to Lieutenant – Afternoon shift watch commander
• Sgt. Michael Miguel promoted to Lieutenant – Midnight shift watch commander
• Sgt. Timothy Panell promoted to Lieutenant – Administrative Services
• Sgt. Michael Carr promoted to Lieutenant – Detective Commander
• Corporal Daniel Raymond promoted to Sergeant – Day shift supervisorCorporal William Munroe promoted to Sergeant – Afternoon shift supervisor
• Corporal Ken Cabral promoted to Sergeant – Midnight shift supervisor
• Officer Joseph Wieszbicki promoted to Corporal – Afternoon shift supervisor
• Officer Jason Dunlea reassigned to Detective division
• Officer Dan Martin reassigned to the Uniform Division – Day shift