By Bob Arnold
Some things never change.
Yes. The Wesson Police Department (WPD) is moving to a new home, but Chad O'Quinn is coming back to his old desk -- or maybe a new one in the new quarters -- as WPD Chief with the resignation of Michael Stogner, who became WPD Chief in September.
O'Quinn left the job in August. Now his replacement is leaving law enforcement and his post at WPD for personal reasons.
"The change reflects the pressures on policing today," says Wesson Town Clerk Angela Hester. "Policing isn't easy in today's environment."
O'Quinn started his law enforcement career in 1999 when he was 23 years old as a shift sergeant and deputy at the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office after previously working briefly for his family's trucking company. He came to Wesson by way of Brookhaven in 1990, started going to Wesson Attendance Center in the ninth grade, and graduated from Wesson High School in 1993 before serving in the U.S. Army from 1994-1998 as a supply specialist.
In his initial Army stint, O'Quinn served one year at Camp Casey in South Korea and two years at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He went back into active service in the military in 2009-2010 as a supply specialist for the Clinton, Mississippi, based National Guard 114th Military Police Company at FOB Marez, Mosul Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom), during Iraqi Enduring Freedom.
Until his honorable discharge from the National Guard in 2012, O'Quinn's law enforcement career evolved simultaneously. He joined the Wesson Police Department in 2002, while continuing to work at the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office until 2004 and then moving to the Copiah County Sheriff's Office, where he was the canine interdiction officers as a patrol captain enforcing drug laws along Interstate 55.
Just before his deployment to Iraq with the National Guard, O'Quinn's biological father, with whom he was developing a relationship, was murdered while working in the Wesson pawn shop he owned and operated.
O'Quinn married his wife Michelle in 1998, and they have two grown children -- Deanna and Brandon, both Wesson High School graduates. O'Quinn has Associate's Art Degree in criminal justice from Co-Lin.
Stogner, a Natchez native, started working in law enforcement in 2001 with the Hazlehurst Police Department. A graduate of Wilkinson County Christian Academy, Woodville, Mississippi, he worked in a variety of private sector positions before joining the staff at the Copiah County jail. He became a Wesson police officer in December 2007 and also served the Copiah County Sheriff's Office and Co-Lin police force. He and his wife Misty have two children -- Laila and Zachery.
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