GALVESTON — It’s not the first time Charles Wiley has taken over a police department distrusted by some and rocked by scandals.

But what makes this job different for the newly appointed Galveston police chief is that he’s already well acquainted with and emotionally tied to Galveston. He knows the streets, remembers his evening rounds as an East End patrol officer in the 1960s and still has old friends from those days working at his side.

Patrol officer Bill Scott, who worked with Wiley when he was a Galveston officer, said he thought his old friend would help reshape the department.

“We’re going to get the police department run like it needs to be,” he said. “Back then, we had a handle on crime. We kept people in jail.”

Wiley is convinced he knows what it’ll take to heal the force from its scarring last few years.

“A lot of people think this place is broken,” he said. “It’s not. Our employees do a good job all day long.”

What he said the police department needs is a “comprehensive community policing initiative” — police jargon that translates into more officers on the streets who know residents, listen to their concerns and fix their problems.

When he was a Galveston patrol officer, he walked the streets, knew business owners and learned back roads to get to scenes first.

Police have gotten away from that model, he said.

“We became reactive,” he said. “We rode in our cars and sat in the air conditioning and shone a light in the alleys at night and waited for calls to come in.”

Wiley said his idea for community policing is more than a bike patrol or foot patrol program. It would keep officers in the same areas so they meet residents, allow them to attend neighborhood meetings and help them set up neighborhood watch programs and possibly redraw the department’s current district lines to improve officer distribution.

“It’s a philosophy that needs to permeate the whole organization,” he said. “Officers need to know what (community policing) is and how to do it. A big part of our problem is there is a big disconnect between the public and police.”

There’s also distrust, some of which he said was likely deserved.

In May, the district attorney’s office asked the Texas Rangers to investigate missing money and drugs from the police department’s property room. Wiley said had police been policing themselves and the department’s civilian employees better, the problem could’ve been prevented.

In his first week, he’s started setting up a revamped and supercharged internal investigation division.

He’s renamed the division the “office of professional standards” and has plans to require periodic staff inspections to keep things in check.

Those inspections will audit property rooms, expense accounts and departments, he said.

“It’s a very, very important part of earning the public’s respect,” he said. “It will help us improve and enhance our department and avoid pitfalls.”