PARIS — Police Chief Michael Madden will be sworn in at a ceremony at 6 p.m.  Tuesday in the Paris Fire Department meeting room on Western Avenue.

The public is invited to greet the 49-year-old former captain of the Shelton (Conn.) Police Department.

He succeeds interim Chief Jerry Hinton.

Madden has a bachelor’s degree in communications from St. Joseph’s College in Standish and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va. His starting salary will be $58,000.

According to a recent interview with the Connecticut Post, Madden has worked as a disc jockey, a sports announcer and a purchasing agent. In 1986 he was appointed as a full-time officer with the Shelton Police Department, first as a K9 officer then as a detective sergeant, detective lieutenant and in 2005 as a captain. The department has 55 officers and 19 civilian members in a city of some 70,000 people.

The Connecticut Post also noted that Madden has a “side” job managing the East Coast tours of the Marshall Tucker band and a few other bands.

The Oct. 1 ceremony will mark the beginning of a new era for the Paris Police Department. Voters defeated a plan to merge the Paris and Norway departments last year as a number of veteran Paris officers resigned.

In November 2012, Chief David Verrier resigned to take a job with the Maine Correctional Center in Windham. He was succeeded by interim chief Lt. Michael Dailey, who left the force in May for a job with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office. 

Hinton was contracted as interim chief in May during another controversial plan to disband the force entirely in favor of contracting with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office. Voters turned down that plan in June.

Madden is expected to begin his duties Monday, Oct. 7, Town Manager Amy Bernard said. Hinton will stay on a day or so during the transition.

ldixon@sunjournal.com