Hughes assumes role as Maricopa chief of police
by Katie Sawyer | Maricopa Monitor
Maricopa Police Chief James “Jim” Hughes remembers the moment he decided to become a police officer vividly. His hometown of Bernardsville, New Jersey, had just been hit by a rainstorm that year, around August 1973.
“I was 5 or 6 years old and I was on the porch of my parents’ house,” Hughes said. “It was a heavy rainstorm. There were trees down, power lines down, and I remember seeing a police car go by.”
Bernardsville was — and still is — a town of just a few thousand, and it sits about 25 miles west of New York City. His father served the community for 26 years and, unbeknownst to Hughes that day, was in the patrol car he saw driving by.
