Margolis Healy & Associates

Louis M. Dekmar
Senior Consulting Associate

Louis M. Dekmar has 31 years police experience, with 17 years as police chief or chief of public safety.  Presently, he serves as Chief of Public Safety for the City of LaGrange, Georgia.  He is responsible for supervision, personnel and management of the LaGrange Police and Fire Department.  In the police department, Chief Dekmar instituted significant personnel, operational, and service-related initiatives, improving training and educational curriculum, and developing and expanding community and problem solving policing programs (COMSTAT), reducing liability and crime rates and increasing customer satisfaction.  The police agency was accredited by CALEA in 1999 and re-accredited in 2002, 2005, and 2008; State Certified in 1998, 2002, and 2008.  The Fire Department (Class 2) operates four stations and provides a variety of fire and EMS services.  The Departments of Public Safety employ over 180 full-time and part-time employees.  The police department provides contract police services for LaGrange College and LaGrange Public Housing Authority.  He is responsible for the public safety function of LaGrange College,  a four-year liberal arts and sciences institution offering 53 academic and pre-professional programs.

Chief Dekmar is the Chairperson of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) and, as a Governor-appointed member of the Georgia Board of Public Safety, provides policy oversight for the Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.  Chief Dekmar is a former member of the Peace Officer’s Standards and Training Council (POST), serving on the Probable Cause Committee.  He is also Past-President of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, representing over 550 police chiefs in a variety of forums.  In 2006, he chaired a “vehicle pursuit” committee for the Georgia Chief’s Association, which published a white paper.  The pursuit research was accepted by the United States Supreme Court in a Brief of Amicus Curiae (Scott v Harris).

Chief Dekmar has served as a Civil Rights Monitor for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.  He monitored a police agency for three years to ensure compliance with tasks detailed in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOA) between the agency and DOJ.  In that capacity, Chief Dekmar assisted the agency in developing policies, protocols, and procedures to ensure sufficient managerial safeguards addressing officer misconduct issues, particularly those involving bias based profiling.

In the last 25 years, Chief Dekmar has served as an adjunct professor for several colleges and universities, teaching management, criminal justice and ethics courses.  He is also a national presenter for police and elected leaders on a range of topics involving leadership, ethics, and liability issues.

Chief Dekmar holds a Masters of Public Administration, Georgia College and State University, and a Bachelor of Science, University of Wyoming.  He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and a graduate of the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar (LEEDS).  Chief Dekmar is a member if IACP (Police Image and Ethics and Private Sector Liaison committees).