'Poor black kid from Reidsville' reaches top post at highway patrol

Commander Glenn McNeill’s controlled demeanor and alert gaze never wavered as he described in calm, measured sentences his mother’s murder more than 35 years ago.

He asked that the details of his highly personal story not be published, and for good reason.

“This ain’t about me, ma’am,” McNeill said, referring to his recent appointment by the governor to the top post in the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. McNeill is only the second African American to lead the organization since its inception in 1929; the first was Col. R. W. Holden, was commander from 1999 to 2004.

“I’m a 10-year-old poor black kid from Reidsville,” McNeill explained, referring to himself when the first of two deep, personal losses occurred. “I’m still that poor black kid even today. I’m just trying to do the best that I can. I don’t think I’m nobody special.”

McNeill views his new responsibilities as a pinnacle of public service rather than an emblem of importance.

But it is about him: The tragedies propelled him to the highway patrol, and the lessons from those tragedies inform his leadership.

Six years after his mother’s murder, McNeill’s family suffered another horrific loss.

McNeill was 16 and driving to his part-time job at 4:30 a.m. when he saw his godmother walking up the street, crying uncontrollably. When McNeill called out to her son, who was walking with her and trying to console her, he was assured everything would be fine.

It wasn’t.

When McNeill returned from work, he discovered “my sister’s best friend, our neighbor — her parents are my godparents — their daughter Rita was killed by a drunk driver.” What McNeil unwittingly witnessed was the mother’s grief just moments after hearing the news from a state trooper: Rita was dead at 19.

“Rita’s death is at the forefront for me,” McNeill said last week, some 30 years later, his voice composed and his hands folded neatly on a conference table in the patrol’s downtown Raleigh headquarters, just days before his swearing in.

“Early on, I made a commitment to what the highway patrol’s mission is all about. It’s easy to be committed to a life of public service when you’ve experienced the loss of someone like Rita.”

The way troopers handled Rita’s and his mother’s deaths deepened his empathy and directed his ambition.

His empathy stems from the grief he experienced and witnessed, and “my awareness that a five- to 10-second interaction with a 9-year-old kid can change (the child’s) mind forever,” McNeill explained, referring to his younger brother on the night of their mother’s murder.

“I’ve always been very aware of every interaction” law enforcement has with individuals, he added, his voice firm. “The standard is excellence. Our troopers are going to be held accountable for how they treat and interact with people. We’re ambassadors, the most recognized law enforcement agency in North Carolina.”

His mother’s murder remains unsolved. “I had always hoped that someday, some way, before my mother’s mother passed away, we would be able to find the person who took (my mother’s) life,” he said, then paused. His grandmother died a few years ago.

“For me, I wanted to enter into this profession to try to give back and do something I wasn’t able to receive for myself.”

By the time he was a senior at Reidsville High, McNeill’s goal was common knowledge. “I was voted most likely to be a police officer in high school, and that was because they didn’t have ‘most likely to be a state trooper,’ McNeill said, a smile sliding onto his face. “There’s not a person in my circle who didn’t know I wanted to be a state trooper. Even all the state troopers in my city growing up knew I wanted to be a trooper.”

After graduating, McNeill enlisted in the Army so that he could join the Military Police, his preparation for his ultimate goal. He chose the Army because it allows soldiers who score high enough on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to choose their jobs.

In 1994, McNeill joined the highway patrol as a trooper in Durham. By 2014, he was a major, and in 2015 he graduated from the 262nd Session of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.

The governor’s appointment … well, he didn’t see that coming.

“The interview with him has been a highlight of my professional career,” McNeill said. “What comes in second place is that phone call” telling McNeill he was the governor’s choice. “Third place is my wife’s reaction and her tears of joy, ’cause I didn’t get here by myself.”

The poor black kid from Reidsville is somewhere he never expected to be.

“I was not supposed to be sitting in the governor’s office. It was an out-of-body experience,” he said, his smile swelling into a grin. “I will exceed his expectations.”

Reaching the highest post in the agency he esteems the most offers him a whole new set of goals, McNeill says.

“The pinnacle of my career is going to be what I hope to accomplish for our troopers and civilian staff within our organization,” he says.

“The pinnacle will be if I’m able to do outstanding things for them — make their work life better, address quality of life issues like pay raises, new facilities.

“Very humbly do I say the following: I’ve never been stationed any place where all I do is my job. I immediately look for ways to improve upon it. And I expect to do the same thing with the job I’ve just been appointed to.”