So if the absolute worst case scenario happens, there will already be an officer on scene ready to help. Wilcox spoke more about those benefits in that prior interview with the Register.“ It does give you a peace of mind, having our own department,” Wilcox said.“ Those other responding agencies don’ t have to worry about putting as many officers at the schools during a critical incident. Because we’ ll already have officers in those schools... The deterrence level of having an officer on site all the time. Just having that patrol car sitting outside of school takes it from a soft target to a harder target.” The Madison County Schools Police Department’ s inaugural chief got his start in law enforcement following one of the great tragedies of the 1990s— the mass shooting at Columbine High School. Occurring at a time when school shootings had yet to become so common, two seniors at the school killed 13 students and one teacher before taking their own lives. Wilcox said that the tragedy sent a reverberating impact in the law enforcement community. It certainly changed the direction of his own career. At the time he was working with the Montgomery County Sheriff’ s Office.“ Right after I got hired we had the Columbine shooting. Grants were released from the Clinton Administration for School Resource Officers. and my sheriff asked me to take that position. So I was one of the first School Resource Officers in the state and the first one in Montgomery County,” Wilcox said. Six years as an SRO in Montgomery County was followed by 15 years of service as an instructor at the DOCJT back home in Madison County. After the passing of the School Safety and Resiliency Act in 2019, Wilcox became Kentucky’ s first School Security Marshal.
The Madison County Schools Police Department comes out to a board of education meeting. | Photo by Blake Vickers
“ We built an office where we did compliance on all 173 school districts in the state of Kentucky— all 1,327 schools,” Wilcox said.“ It’ s been an amazing ride. There were no SROs when I decided I wanted to be a police officer... My whole career has been moving towards that. and I’ ve become the Chief of Police for a school-based law enforcement agency that doesn’ t officially exist yet.” He retired from law enforcement services in 2024. It didn’ t last long. He was officially hired as chief of the school police department during a school board meeting this past April. It gave him just enough time to hit the ground running, as Wilcox spent the summer hiring SROs for every school in the district. The school police department also got a big hand from other law enforcement agencies across the state. Some sold their surplus supplies to them at a low price, while others gave it to them for free. Those assisting agencies included the Madison County Sheriff’ s Office( who previously provided the school system all of their SROs), the Independence Police Department, the Glasgow Police Department, the Louisville Police Department, and several others. During a school board meeting earlier this year, Board Member Brandon Rutherford praised Wilcox and company for using those connections to help better equip the district.“ We are all very excited to have you all,” Rutherford said.“ The wealth of connections you have around the state are going to put us above and beyond everybody else starting out.” While their role as being the first responder in the event of an emergency is of deep importance, it’ s far from the only duty SROs have. An important part of the job is building relationships with students. That means not only being a protector for students, but also someone they can turn to if they’ re in a bad situation at home or even within the school.“ I feel like the most diverse job in law enforcement is an SRO. 99 % of your time, you’ re building relationships— working with students, working with teachers and staff. There’ s not as much law enforcement side of it, but you have to have that relationship-building quality,” Wilcox said.“ But you also have to have that quality of being tactically sound. If a critical incident occurs, you have to be able to take care of that.”
12 Madison Magazine September-October 2026