Chief of Police in Gloucester Police Department
Edward Conley has been the Chief of Police in Gloucester, Massachusetts for the past four years. The Gloucester Police Department has 82 employees and 65 full-time sworn officers. The City of Gloucester is 41 square miles with a population of 30,000. Gloucester is known as America’s oldest fishing port but in more recent years the city’s progressive response to the opioid crisis received national recognition. Under Chief Conley’s leadership, the Gloucester Police Department created the Community Impact Unit (CIU) to address addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. CIU combines Police officers, school resource officers, a recovery coach navigator, and a mental health clinician. More recently the unit purchased a comfort and support Golden Retriever “Ace”.
Chief Conley started his law enforcement career as a Deputy Sheriff with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in 1992. In 1994 he was appointed to the Chelsea Police Department as a patrol officer where he spent 22-years in various assignments including command of the night detectives, narcotics unit, crime analysis and internal affairs. He oversaw the department's first efforts to reduce violent crime by developing a co-response model with Roca, a local nongovernmental agency. In 2016, he was selected to be the Chief of the Manchester by-the-Sea Police Department leaving for the Gloucester Police Department in 2019. He has a B.A. degree from Curry College and a M.A. from Anna Maria College.
Chief Conley is a veteran of the U.S. Army where he served with the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.
He and his wife Andrea live in Gloucester and have 4 children, Caitlyn, Shannon, Eddie, Alex and a yellow lab, Hadley and two grandchildren, Emma and Johnny.
