St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson to retire this fall

ST. CLOUD - St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson, the city's first Black police chief, will retire this fall after a decade running the department.

Succeeding Anderson will be his second-in-command, Assistant Police Chief Jeff Oxton, who will take over as chief after Anderson's last day on Nov. 30, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis announced Friday.

Oxton, 51, is homegrown, having graduated from Apollo High School in St. Cloud before attending the University of North Dakota and St. Cloud State University.

Anderson, 55, was believed to be the first Black police chief in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities when Kleis appointed him in 2012. Before coming to St. Cloud, Anderson worked in law enforcement in Dakota and Carver counties and served eight years in the military.

During Anderson's tenure, the department zeroed in on community engagement by building relationships with residents and establishing the Community OutPost, the first of its kind in the state. Known as the COP House, it's home to a handful of police and wellness services, after-school homework programs and more.

"I've had to make a lot of decisions in 17 years as mayor, and one of the best decisions I've ever made was to hire Chief Anderson," said Kleis, who noted that Anderson's ability to lead had earned him the respect of officers and the community as a whole.

"I grew up in a very violent neighborhood in Detroit, and all I can remember from that is how much others invested in me so that I could reach my full potential," Anderson said. "I will never be able to repay that debt and so I've tried to use this platform to pay back as much as I could, as often as I could."

Oxton was hired as a St. Cloud policing assistant in 1994 and then as a police officer in 1995. He was promoted to sergeant in 2006, lieutenant in 2012 and assistant chief in 2015.

"Over those years, I've seen the impact good policing can do for a community," Oxton said. "For the individuals who we serve on every call we go to, we have the ability to have a critical impact on their lives."