Top WEB Cop Retires

Top Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills (aka ​“WEB”) district cop Lt. Makiem Miller has many sides. He’s the guy who mentors at-risk kids, but won’t let them beat him at paintball. He’s also the smiling face that both cops and the community look to in tense situations.

Miller wrapped up his 20-year career with the police department in a hail of stories and well wishes for the future. Miller is retiring from the department and will become the chief of police at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., which is near Charlotte.

“Makiem Miller has been an inspiration,” Lt. Sam Brown, Dixwell’s district manager, said at a recent Compstat data-sharing meeting at police headquarters, where colleagues paid tribute to Miller. ​“He has tenacity, and when he says he’s going to do something, he does it. He will truly be missed.”

Brown came through the academy with Miller. The men have been good friends throughout their careers. Miller pointed out several classmates in the Compstat room who’ve made the journey from rookie cop to leaders in the department with him, including Brown, Newhallville District Manager Lt. Herb Sharp, police academy commander Capt. Julie Johnson, Capt. Anthony Duff, who is in charge of family services, and Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova.

Brown along with retired state probation officer Leonard Jahad presented Miller with a proclamation from Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker. It commended him not only for his tireless service and efforts to build bridges between cops and the community, but also for his work as a founding board member of the ​“My Brother’s Keeper” community mentoring campaign.

“When I first got on this job, 20 years seems like a lifetime,” Miller said. ​“Everybody that is close to 20 years can see how quickly it goes by, and you know I’d just like to thank the people I surrounded myself around.

“If you just surround yourself around good cops that are good people at the same time, it opens up a lot of doors in this place,” he said. Miller said he was a young husband and father. His daughter, Mariah, who is now 23 and a recent UConn grad, was just 4 years old at the beginning of his police career. His son, Makiem, was born while Miller was in the academy. He’s now a 19-year-old college student and serving in the Army National Guard. They were both on hand at last Thursday’s Compstat meeting to honor their father.

“It was the only day I had to take off” from the academy, Miller recalled of the day his son was born. He said his children have been his motivation throughout his career and life. ​“Everything I do is an example for them. I preach it to them all the time about goal setting. But this job — I’m walking away from this job, I’m not saying I’m ​‘running out of here,’ because I love this place.”

“This job has blessed me with two kids through college … and I was able to go back and finish my master’s degree at the same time,” he said with emotion in his voice. ​“We were able to take beautiful trips around the world, own a home, a good car to drive, good family, and good friends.”

Miller worked his way through the ranks from patrol, to detective ultimately achieving the rank of lieutenant. He has served as the WEB district manager since 2013.

Who The Hell Is Kiemo?

Friend Leonard Jahad had two stories he had to share Thursday about Miller. One cracked the whole room up. The other illustrated just how much Miller’s service and friendship meant to so many in the room.

“We’re all friends outside of work, so we said we wanted to do something for the kids. We just grabbed some kids with no results, no benchmarks, no measurements or anything,” Jahad said. ​“So we took the kids paintballing as a relationship-building activity.

“It was us against them. And Kiem came with this equipment. I don’t know where he got this equipment … but he had mud all over his face. And I was like ​‘Kiem what’s all this?’

“He said, ​‘We’re going to war.’

“I said, ​‘Naw, we’re mentors.’

“He said, ​‘Naw, I don’t lose.’”

That was Miller, who attended Sacred Heart University on a baseball scholarship, talking.

“So none of that smiling or any of that. That day it went away. He said, ​‘You were Army, right?’ I said, ​‘Yeah, I was reserve.’ He said, ​‘That’s good enough. Let’s go.’ We went to work on that day.”

The events of an evening in 2012 truly illustrates the character of his friend, Jahad said. There had been a homicide at the Burger King on Whalley Avenue. The men involved had fled to a house around the corner from the restaurant. Jahad’s cousin, a quadriplegic, lived on the first floor of that house.

“I got the chirp, and I ran over there,” Leonard recalled. ​“I ran to [Officer] Jillian [Knox] and I said to Jillian, ​‘Please don’t let them do anything. My cousin is on the first floor, and he can’t move. I don’t want them throwing gas in there or whatever.’

“And she said, ​‘Don’t worry, Kiemo’s there.’ So I said, ​‘OK.’

“A few minutes later, the father of one of the kids involved, Milton Lloyd, came over. Milton came over crying. Milton was a big guy — 350 – 375 pounds. He said, ​‘Jahad please, please, don’t let them hurt my son.’ I said, ​‘Don’t worry, Kiemo’s there.’ And he calmed down.

“A family member who cares for my cousin, he came over, and said, ​‘Cousin, what’s going on? I see all these police, people are running inside. Is our cousin OK?’ I said, ​‘Don’t worry Kiemo’s there.’

“So he said, ​‘Who the hell is Kiemo?’

“I said, ​‘Lt. Miller is there. He has it,’” Jahad said. ​“Through the mask and everything, we still saw him smiling the entire time.”

Spell-bound

Miller couldn’t let the storytelling go by without relating at least one of his own. It was about a man that he considers his big brother, retired homicide detective and current Project Longevity chief Stacy Spell.

“I remember my first day in narcotics. That was the first day I met Stacy,” Miller recalled. ​“I’d heard his name a million times. When I saw him, he scared the hell out of me. All I seen was this big black, muscular guy with dreadlocks. He was holding a shotgun.”

Miller said on that first day, Spell took him on a drug raid.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. ​“We went down to Clay Street. He kicked down a door. The Latin Kings were inside. He got ​‘em all laid out. They thought they were talking behind his back in fluent Spanish, and then I heard Stacy talking fluent Spanish.”

Miller said that’s when he knew he’d found his role model on the force. He said it was a good choice.

“Stacy, we all know not just what a great cop you are. But he’s just such a good person,” Miller said. ​“Stacy took me under his wing from that day, and he coached me so much not only through narcotics. But he sat with me through my very first shooting interview; when I went to the floor, I had no idea what I was doing. He taught me not only how to be a good cop, but how to be a good person, how to treat people right.”

“Stay away from the complainers and people that want to keep you down,” Miller advised new cops. ​“People who want to tell you, ​‘Don’t take the promotional exam.’ This is one of the best places that you can market yourself.”

He said to be retiring from a 20-year career at 43 years young, having been promoted three times and now being able to move on to a chief’s position, is a beautiful thing.

“It’s a position I want, in a place I want to do it, and I’m going to be with the people I want to be with,” the goal-setting Miller said. ​“I couldn’t write it better than it happened.”