Kingstree Police Captain Kimberly Marlow has been appointed the new Chief of Police by new Town Manager Kippton Coker. She takes Coker’s place, who recently stepped down as chief in February to become the town manager of Kingstree upon Richard Treme’s retirement.
Marlow has been a law enforcement officer for almost 17 years. She began her career with the City of Manning. “As a brand spanking new patrol officer,” she says.
Two years later, she moved to the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office, where she worked on the Narcotics Task Force and was an investigator. She was also point of contact for the sex offender registry and was a part of the civil division handling evictions and serving papers.
When Kipp, then a Major at Clarendon County, moved to Lake City Police Department, he asked Marlow to follow him. She worked in Lake City for around four years and then went to Pamplico Police Department where she was second in command.
When Coker became Chief in Kingstree, he asked her to come to Kingstree to handle accreditations. She quickly moved from Sergeant to Captain. When he became Town Manager, Coker appointed her Chief. Her first day in the new role was March 5.
Marlow’s family moved to Kingstree from Lake City when she was nine years old. She went to Lake City High School. It was there she decided on a career in law enforcement.
“When I told my mom I wanted to be a police officer, she said no. She thought the line of work was too dangerous,” says Marlow. Her mother talked her into going to nursing school at Florence Darlington Technical College instead. She attended one semester.
Even though Marlow admits to her soft spot for the elderly and children, this was not the way she wished to serve. She ended up taking classes at Williamsburg Technical College where an advisor told her a criminal justice class had opened up.
“I fell in love with it,” she says. Marlow told her mom if she had to, she would pay her own way, but she knew this was her calling. She finished her Associates Degree in Criminal Justice at Florence Darlington Technical College.
She credits Coker with training her. The two have worked together for 14 years. Kipp has always been a chief that raises up his staff to prepare them for advancement and to help in any way he can, not just officers, but everybody,” she says.
Marlow is the second female chief for Kingstree. Karen Acosta served from 1997-1999. Marlow has two children, a son, 18 months old, and a five-year-old daughter. Though she is a mother and a daughter, she says she has never really looked at her job from the standpoint of the experience as a woman. “It is harder and easier in some aspects. It is harder to get people to take you seriously and know you mean business, but it also works in my favor because women don’t get the complaints that men do in this job. As a woman, maybe it is our tone?” she says.
Marlow looks forward to serving the community in her new role. “Every case teaches me something,” she says. “I just want the ability to help people in any way possible. Kipp has built a lot of trust in the community with the police department and I want to help build on that.”
