Protecting the halls
Madison County Schools Police Department to protect and build relationships with students
“ When you walk into a school, suddenly those are all your kids. When I was the School Security Marshal, I had over 600,000 kids that were my babies … Now I’ ve just got 21 schools to look after, and those students are all my babies as well. It’ s a very heavy responsibility. But it’ s a responsibility that’ s exciting. We get to protect kids.”
That’ s what Chief Ben Wilcox said about being named the first chief of the Madison County Schools Police Department in an interview with the Register in the Spring of 2026. A few months out from that at the start of the new school year, the department is officially active with the start of the 2026-2027 school year. It is a fully staffed and independent police department, albeit with several key partnerships in the community. It comes after the passage of legislation in 2022 that allows school districts to start their own police departments. Now, every school in the district will have their own School Resource Officer, or SRO, on staff to build relationships and be the first to respond in case of emergency. The new department comes in a year when emergency lockdowns have went into effect following a bomb threat at Madison Central High School and a fatal shooting at a nearby bank in Berea.
Blake Vickers
The department has its own logo and badge. | Photo by Blake Vickers
Madison Magazine September-October 2026 11