Edward Flynn was sworn in as Milwaukee's 20th police chief Monday.

Flynn, 59, took the oath of office during a ceremony at City Hall before a group of Milwaukee Police Department officials, politicians, media and other onlookers.

Flynn, who replaces Nanette Hegerty, made the following remarks upon taking the job:

Mayor Barrett, Council President Hines and Chairman Sobczak: thank you for your kind words. Thank you for the confidence you have expressed in me. I will not let you down.

2008 will be an historic year. Certainly that is what the candidates for president are all promising. They also all proclaim that they will bring "change" and that they are in favor of "change." In my experience, being in favor of change is a little like being in favor of gravity. Change will come, whether or not you favor it. The only constant in life is change. The question is how will we respond to inevitable change? The problems of society change in degree and magnitude. The problems of a city change in scope and seriousness. The responsibility for those of us in city government is to anticipate, respond to, and mitigate the negative aspects of change while facilitating and encouraging positive change.

In police work, the more things change the more, in some ways, they remain the same. Although the challenges the police must confront change, our fundamental responsibilities do not. In 1829, Robert Peel, the father of modern policing, stated, "the basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder." The types of crime may change over time. The types of public disorder the police must manage may change over the years. Nonetheless, our responsibility is, no matter what the historical epoch or geographic location to prevent crime and disorder. To those two fundamental purposes of the police a third must also be added, to reduce the level of fear in a community.

I expect the Milwaukee Police Department to be organized and focused on accomplishing that basic mission. We shall reduce the levels of fear, crime and disorder in the City of Milwaukee. Our measure of success will not be the number arrests. Our measure of success will not be the number of traffic citations issues. Our measure of success will not be our response time to non-emergency calls. Our measures of success will be the reduction of crime, fear and disorder in Milwaukee.

To accomplish our mission, we will embrace a community-based, problem-oriented, data-driven policing strategy that emphasizes beat integrity, geographic accountability, the use of problem-solving techniques and a reliance on data to identify threats, measure the results of our interventions, and to hold ourselves accountable; to each other and to our community.

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