Grapevine Police Chief Eddie Salame took rookie police job as a temporary one

by Minnie Payne

GRAPEVINE — When 46-year-old Grapevine Police Chief Eddie Salame accepted a rookie police job with the Fort Worth Police Department in 1984, at age 23, his intention was to work long enough to finish a degree in engineering.

“I was interested in getting enough money to finish my degree and 23 years later, I’m still waiting for that temporary job to end,” he said.

According to Salame, he grew up in San Antonio and attended the San Antonio schools, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1995 from the University of Texas at Arlington. He earned his Master of Liberal Arts with emphasis on alternative dispute resolution from SMU in 2004.

Salame said that he married as a young man and started a family early.

“My wife and I decided that we wanted to travel, so I joined the air force,” he said. “They sent me a whopping distance of 265 miles, from San Antonio to Fort Worth.”

While in the air force, Salame was an instrument technician, wherein he worked on air planes, he said. When he got out of the air force, he wanted to become an engineer.

“I started to Texas Christian University while I was in the air force and then transferred to the University of Texas at Arlington,” he said. “I was going to school fulltime for one year after the air force.”

According to Salame, he needed to get a job, because he had a wife and two children. He went to the City of Fort Worth to apply for a job as an electronics technician and while he was there a police recruiter asked him to apply for a police job.

“The police position paid more, so I decided to take it,” he said. “And so I never became an engineer, but I’ve had a much more interesting run as a police officer.”

Salame said that 93 police officers, including him, and 37 civilians work for the Grapevine Police Department.

He said the man who most inspired him was Fort Worth Police Chief Thomas Windham.

“I was a young policeman when he [Chief Windham] was hired,” he said. “I’ve always admired and respected him for his accomplishments.

“When Chief Windham passed away, he was the longest tenured major city police chief in America.”

Salame said that when he worked on the streets, particularly in Fort Worth for the gangs and narcotics units, he was in eminent danger.

“Danger is a part of this profession, but fear is not a weakness,” he said. “We all have some fear and fear keeps us alive. It keeps our senses open to anything that might not feel right when we’re out there.”

He said that he can’t help worrying about his officers and tries to do everything possible to give them the tools and training to keep them safe every day.

“There’s no such thing as a typical day, in that every day is different,” he said. “A great deal of my time, more than I care for, is spent in necessary meetings. So much of what I do is reactive in nature; invariably something takes me off course, but the variety is what I like most.”

Salame said the pace of being police chief is constant and if he occasionally doesn’t take time to relax, it can wear him down.

“As police chiefs, we have many different constituents, employees, citizens, and governments, that can sometimes bring demands and pose potential conflict with each other,” he said.

City Manager Bruno Rumbelow works closely with Salame.

“I think Eddie is a real progressive police chief and every bit a professional,” Rumbelow said. “We are proud to have him as head of our police department and feel that he is doing an outstanding job. We hope to have him around for a long time.”

Salame has been married to his wife, Margie, for 27 years, and they have two daughters and four grandchildren.