St. Cloud’s New Chief and Assistant Chief of Police Sworn in Monday Night

(KNSI) – A new era has officially started for the St. Cloud Police Department’s two new top cops.

Police Chief Jeff Oxton (right) and Assistant Police Chief Brett Mushatt (left) took the oath of office at Monday night’s city council meeting. Both grew up in St. Cloud, with Oxton graduating from Apollo High School and Mushatt from Tech.

Oxton says he initially went to the University of North Dakota to be a pilot before taking a criminal justice class and deciding to become a cop instead. Oxton has been with the SCPD for 28 years. “I started here as a part-time nighttime parking policing assistant. And so I did that while I went to grad school at St. Cloud State. And then I was hired. And I’ve worked my way up. And now that’s come to today where I get this great opportunity.”

He says the department’s most immediate need will be filling open positions. He will also be working on getting a second Community Outpost on the city’s east side. Oxton says it is very early, but there is movement, and he’s excited about the project. “COP Houses are like seeds, and when you grow them you never know what it’s going to come up. But what it will do is solve what that area of the city needs. We’ve seen that and we’re anxious to grow this COP House and see what becomes of it. Because we know from our experience with the existing COP House, it really has proved to be a great source of resources for that neighborhood.”

He says there will be a meeting for the COP House next week to discuss what the new Outpost will look like. Oxton was sworn in to replace retiring chief William Blair Anderson. Assistant Chief Mushatt is filling Oxton’s old position.

Mushatt is a 20-year veteran of the force and has also spent his entire career with the SCPD. He says he applied only to the SCPD out of college because he wanted to work for his hometown. He talked about what he felt like taking over the new role. “It’s a great feeling. For personal goals, obviously, it’s a big deal to me, but none of this stuff is me alone. I’m only in this position because there are great people that I work with and for and I’m just kind of that representative of the great people doing the work daily, in our community.”

Mushatt says he’s spent several years working on keeping the force’s members healthy. “The only way for us to really serve our community is to have healthy officers. And so my focus has been the health and welfare of our officers and trying to create programs to make sure that they’re in a good spot so that they’re able to better serve our community. And so that will continue to be a focus of mine.”

He says that includes both physical and mental health. The St. Cloud police department consists of around 120 officers.

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