South Chicago Heights police Chief William Joyce will retire Dec. 1, bring to a close his 50-year career in law enforcement.
Joyce, 71, said he looks forward to spending time with his wife, three children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
“Family has always been big, and I just want to spend more time with them,” Joyce said.
Generations of men in his family were either police, fire or military men, Joyce said. His grandfather, Henry Joyce, was a Chicago Fire Department captain, and in 1909 received the Lambert Tree medal for valor for a lifesaving situation.
His grandfather had three sons: one who served in the military, one who served the fire department and Joyce’s father, William E. Joyce, who worked with the Chicago Police Department, he said. His father joined the department in 1947, he said.
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Joyce said he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“I idolized my father. He was my inspiration,” Joyce said. “I just wanted to stay in the family business, I guess.”
Joyce was sworn in as a Chicago police officer Oct. 22, 1973, he said, and started his career as a patrol officer in the 21st District. He worked on a tactical team before being promoted to detective in 1978, he said.
Joyce said he was assigned to work the department’s youth division special investigation unit. He said he’ll never forget the case of a 15-year-old boy who was killed by serial killer Larry Eyler.
“That was a biggie that really stuck in my heart,” Joyce said. “That was our unit that was able to take him down and put him away for the rest of his life.”
In 1990, he took a leave of absence to work as an installation contractor for the exhibits at McCormick Place. While he worked for the Police Department, he also worked part-time as a carpenter creating exhibits at the convention center.
“And then I got lonely for the police, and I went to South Chicago Heights in 1994,” Joyce said.
Joyce worked as a patrol officer, assisted with investigations and helped the department reach compliance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Incident Management System. In 2005, Joyce said he became the village’s director of public safety. In 2007, he was promoted to the department’s police chief.
Joyce said South Chicago Heights is a tight-knit community with a low crime rate. The village has two main streets, Sauk Trail and Chicago Road, and the majority of police reports consist of officers stopping people passing through.
“This is a really nice community, it’s a small community and people get along here. We don’t have a lot of crime,” Joyce said.
While at South Chicago Heights, Joyce said he was proud of his work, along with other police officers, going door-to-door talking to residents about a referendum to build a public safety building for the Police and Fire departments.
South Chicago Heights Mayor Terry Matthews said Joyce helped the next generation of police officers by personally helping new officers with their training and understanding of police procedures. Matthews also credited Joyce with overseeing the referendum for a public safety building.
“Bill pretty much reinvented the department, I have to say,” Matthews said. “His life was police work.”
Over the years, Joyce said policing has changed drastically from technology to enforcement techniques.
For example, Joyce said when he started working in South Chicago Heights, the Police Department was in an old building where reports were handwritten, fingerprints were taken with ink and intake photos were taken with Polaroid cameras.
Over the years, the department moved into a more modern building and the reports, fingerprints and photos have become digital, Joyce said.
Policing has also shifted from writing tickets and arresting people to include more of a social service component, Joyce said.
“It’s looking out for people’s welfare. It’s helping people,” he said.
The search for a new police chief started, Joyce said, and 18 people applied for the position. Of those, six applicants have been selected, Joyce said. He’s working with area police chiefs to select three candidates to present to village officials for consideration.
The mayor and Village Board will hire the next police chief, Joyce said, and he plans to work with that person through Dec. 1, to help with the transition.