Members of the Smith family have been in law enforcement for 65 years – and they aren’t done yet.
By Greg Olson
For most of the past 65 years, Jacksonville residents have been served and protected by members of one family.
Over that time period, three generations of the Smith family — John E. Smith; his son-in-law Neil Snelling; son William R. “Rusty” Smith; and currently grandson Andy Smith — have been members of the Jacksonville Police Department.
John Smith joined the city’s police force on July 1, 1959, the same day Charles P. Runkel was promoted from captain to chief of police.
“I used to kid Chief Runkel that I was hired to take Chief Ike Flynn’s place, but he got Flynn’s badge,” he said.
John Smith said he joined the JPD because he was looking for a job.
“I had applied for a state trooper’s job, but I couldn’t afford to take it because at that time state troopers were required to buy all their equipment and pay for the liability insurance on the squad car,” he said.
Even though John Smith retired from the JPD in 1984, he has excellent recall about many of the calls he handled as a police officer.
He singled out a couple of those events, including getting struck in the chin by a woman at a downtown Jacksonville bar after she objected to his arrest of a man who had engaged in a fight. And other memory was chasing a runaway steer on East Morton Avenue and then getting run over by the same bovine. “It landed me in Norris Hospital for four or five days with cracked vertebrae in my lower back,” John Smith said.
He also recalled that when he started with the JPD that it was not as well-equipped as it is today.
“When I went on in 1959, the police department only had two squad cars, one of which was used mostly for traffic radar detection,” John Smith said. “For the first few years, I worked traffic at North Main and the square. The square on Friday nights was a busy place. We helped control traffic and helped pedestrians in crosswalks. I enjoyed the work, and I enjoyed helping people.”
John Smith is also pleased that his son-in-law, son and grandson followed him into law enforcement.
“I’m proud of what I did, and I’m proud of the fact that I got to work with my son-in-law Neil and my son Rusty at the police department,” he said. “And today I’m proud that my grandson Andy is following in our footsteps as a member of the Jacksonville Police Department.”
John Smith served the JPD for 25 years before retiring Aug. 15, 1984, as a lieutenant.
Neil Snelling married John Smith’s daughter Robin in 1973 and joined the JPD the next year.
“I was working as a quality control inspector at Oscar Mayer in Beardstown when my father-in-law encouraged me to take the Jacksonville Police Department test, which I did on March 20, 1974, the day before my 21st birthday, and I joined the force May 17, 1974,” Snelling said.
“John was responsible for encouraging me to join the police department and after Rusty got back from the Air Force and joined the police department, it was quite the family affair,” he said.
Snelling added, however, that he and his father-in-law and brother-in-law worked different shifts and only during special events did they work together. “I worked with a lot of very good people and had support within the department and from the community,” he said.
“I’m especially proud of Andy and glad to see the family tradition of law enforcement officers continue,” Snelling said.
Snelling retired from the police department in November 2010 as a lieutenant and the JPD’s investigations commander.
Snelling’s brother-in-law, Rusty Smith, joined the JPD on January 1, 1981.
“I went into the Air Force after graduating from Jacksonville High School in 1975,” Rusty Smith said. “I spent four years in the Air Force, including service as an Air Force security police officer. I knew police work had been good for my dad and for my brother-in-law Neil.”
After being discharged from the Air Force, Rusty Smith returned to Jacksonville and applied for a job with the JPD.
“When I joined the police department, it had a reputation as being a progressive department in the sense of promoting higher education among department members,” he said. “That was attractive to me. And I had good fellow officers that were always encouraging me to push myself to be progressive as the department was progressing.”
Rusty Smith’s ambition as a police officer led him to being chosen to serve as a member of the first Central Illinois Enforcement Group, which is an undercover narcotics investigation unit.
And through that group, Rusty Smith became acquainted with Illinois State Police officers.
“That led me to apply to the Illinois State Police, which I joined in September 1987,” he said. Ultimately, he served the Illinois State Police for 27 years before retiring as a major in ISP’s Region 3, which covers Central Illinois.
So, it was perhaps only natural for Rusty Smith’s son Andy to have a career in law enforcement.
Andy Smith first worked for four and half years with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department before joining the JPD in August 2023.
“Law enforcement was always an interest of mine because I always looked up to my dad, my uncle and my grandpa,” he said. “They were all successful, and I would follow in their footsteps. I wanted a job where I didn’t have to sit in an office and could do something different every day.”
Andy Smith said he works with many knowledgeable police officers who “are helping me every day to be the best police officer I can be.”
Eventually, Andy Smith said he would like to be a K-9 officer, which is something his grandfather and father both did.
“I was always proud that my father was a police officer,” Andy Smith said.
