Champaign Police Chief Named President of IL Law Enforcement Group

Champaign's police chief has been named to head an organization that networks with fellow officers around the state.

R.T. Finney will be installed this weekend as the next President of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. In his 1-year term, Finney will help develop standards in training, and discuss legislation impacting officers throughout the state.

Finney says the organization's conferences have proved an invaluable place to compare notes with others in the profession, particularly with small police departments that have 10 or fewer officers.

"Getting together with smaller departments, and getting together with larger departments than ourselves - that certainly lends itself to more experiences than we could ever have on our own," said Finney. "Just the aspect of knowing what you went through, and what somebody else went through is invaluable in terms of networking,"

Finney has been part of the ILACP since 1997. Before being made Chief of Police in Champaign, Finney worked in Quincy and Carbondale.

He'll be installed as the organization's president at its annual conference this weekend in Champaign. The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police represents about 12-hundred officers throughout the state.