In October, Police Chief Vernon Knuckles will be deployed to serve in Arizona with the National Guard for roughly a year.
During that time, Assistant Chief Andy Brock will take his place. When Knuckles is back in town, he’ll regain his title as police chief.
“I think he’ll do a really great job,” Knuckles said.
Brock served as interim chief before Knuckles got the job a few years ago, He’s been a lieutenant too, in addition to his experience as assistant chief.
“I’m not going to be a long ways away, so I’m going to stay engaged as much as I can remotely, but Andy will pretty much be the day-to-day operations,” Knuckles said.
Knuckles, his 27-year-old son and a lot of others in the Guard are going to Arizona to support U.S. Border Patrol, which is understaffed, Knuckles said.
They’ll do administrative duties, like data entry and watching cameras to try and detect people that are coming through the desert, Knuckles said.
“The purpose of us going down and augmenting them is to relieve the Border Patrol agents that are in those positions so they can go and do enforcement. Our mission will have nothing to do with law enforcement, it’s strictly administrative,” Knuckles said.
The overall mission they’re supporting spans from California to Texas and has been going on for at least a decade, he said.
“When I got deployed, people were like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s because of the election, you know … the current administration is trying to show they’re doing something,’” said Knuckles. “The fact is, the Border Patrol is understaffed … there’s no political spin to it.”
Knuckles first signed up with Utah’s National Guard back in 1985 after getting recruited at Monticello High School.
“I’ve been in the National Guard for a long time, and when you serve in the Guard, there is that possibility that you can get deployed, and that happened,” he said. “It’s my second deployment. I went to Iraq in ’03 with the Guard.”
This isn’t his first deployment, but he said it will be his last. When he’s back in February 2026, he plans to retire from it.
