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In October 2020, Bartlesville Police Chief Tracy Roles issued a new directive which allowed Bartlesville police officers to sport facial hair if they followed certain parameters for a trail period of six months.

Chief Roles said he would revisit the policy in April 2021. On Friday, Chief Roles announced that facial hair will be permitted at certain times.

From April to September, full beards will not be allowed. Chief Roles said they still have a policy where the officers can wear a mustache and goatee combination at that time as long as it meets certain parameters. From October to the end of March, Chief Roles said officers can where full beards if they so choose.

Chief Roles said a group of officers approached him when he got to Bartlesville in October 2018 about changing the directives to allow any uniformed or non-uniformed police officers to grow a full beard if they wish. He said he was completely opposed to the idea, but the officers were persistent, so he opened up to change.

A six month trial period followed. Chief Roles said they monitored the wearing of full beards for compliance and professionalism during that time. He said the officers could not grow their facial hair no longer than a half inch in length; beards had to be neatly trimmed and maintained as to not interfere with the wearing of personal safety masks or other personal protective equipment such as gas masks.

When Chief Roles was coming up as a young police officer, the standard was that officers needed to be clean shaven. Chief Roles said it didn't bother him, but their hair always had to be three inches above their collar, their sideburns had to be a certain length, and facial hair had to be fully removed at all times. He said he doesn't like facial hair on officers because of this, but his guys did such a great job during the trial period that he was willing to compromise with them.

Chief Roles said he was kind of glad this was such a big deal for their officers and for the community because it took their minds off of some of the noise surrounding law enforcement across the nation.