HAMLET — Effective today, Hamlet Police Chief Scott Waters will hang up his badge and gun and retire from the Hamlet Police Department.
Residents, family and friends of Waters stopped by the Rotunda at the Hamlet Depot on Thursday to congratulate Waters on his retirement and reminisce on his time in the city.
“You won’t find a better chief than Scott Waters,” said Laurinburg Chief of Police Darwin Williams. “It’s more than just fighting crime. At the end of the day, you want people who care and make people better people. And he’s one of those special people.”
Waters started his law enforcement career at the Hamlet Police Department in 1991 as a patrol officer and moved through the ranks, serving as shift sergeant, school resource officer at Hamlet Junior High, detective sergeant, detective lieutenant, detective captain and patrol captain before being promoted to chief in 2014.
Waters told the Daily Journal that the hardest part of his retirement would be waking up the next morning and not being able to put on his badge and gun and crank up his car to go to work.
“I’m a workaholic, I don’t like staying out of work,” Waters said in an earlier interview. “It’s just time for my family, I’m a grandpa now … that’s what I work for, is for them, and now I get to spend some quality time with them.”
Waters said the community is important to him and he plans on staying involved — like helping the Richmond County Crime Stoppers and visiting the Hamlet senior center — during his retirement.
“This job is about helping people, being involved in the community and unifying people, not dividing,” said Waters at the Hamlet Senior Center chili cook off earlier this month. “I’m rooted in this community. I was born and raised here, and it has helped me. Hamlet is my home and my roots are down deep. You can’t cut me down.”
On March 19, Waters was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, an honor given by the governor to recognize those who “have made significant contributions to the state and their communities through their exemplary service and exceptional accomplishments,” according to the organization’s website.
At his retirement party Thursday, the Richmond County Soup Kitchen, Crime Stoppers and the City of Hamlet presented Waters with plaques thanking him for his service and his involvement in the community. HPD presented Waters with a collection of pins that signified the ranks he held while working for the department.
“We want to let Scott know that we saw all the things that he did and all the time he spent away from his family,” said K-9 Sergeant Britt Emert. “And we just wanted to personally recognize him.”
Former Hamlet Police Chief Terry Moore said he was shocked by how fast the time flew by. Moore said he and Waters took college classes together, and he was impressed by Waters’ work ethic. It made the decision easy when Moore hired him in 1991.
“I was never disappointed in him,” said Moore. “He’s very honest and if he ever got into anything, he wouldn’t lie.”
Waters said he’ll miss working for Hamlet and his men and women in law enforcement. But his roots are deeply rooted in Hamlet, so he said he’ll remain involved in any way that he can.
“I bleed way too much blue to hang the badge and I hate to leave where I started,” he said. “I have a lot of time left in me and a lot of good ideas, but I’ll just have to find some other path that God will lay out for me.”
