Abraham Gilman is Tilton's top cop

TILTON — The Tilton Police Department has a new station, new vehicles, and now, a new chief.

Abraham Gilman, 40, was sworn in as the town's top cop on Aug. 3. He has served with Tilton's police department since 2013. 

“I started my career in Northfield in 2007, where I went to the 146 Academy,” Gilman said.

He grew up in the area and currently resides in Franklin with his wife of 12 years.

With a new chief comes new goals, and new changes at the department, and for Gilman, those changes include some new equipment and people. 

“A lot of things that we want to change for the police department is personnel,” Gilman said. “We want to hire, we want to get our staffing back up, we want to get some more movement in the police department.”

According to Gilman, the type of people the department needs the most are patrol officers. Like almost all employment sectors, police departments across the country have suffered from staffing shortages, increasing strain on small municipalities such as those in the Lakes Region. 

“Once we fill patrol, we can then push promotions and processes for detectives, sergeants and then also administrators, since I’ve moved up now from lieutenant to chief.”

Gilman categorized his promotion as “not a surprise.”

“When we moved over to the [new] police department, we had a lot of people retire and leave the agency and go [to] other departments — better pay and those things,” Gilman said. “I was a lieutenant. We picked up a chief last June. Within five, six months, that didn’t work out; I was put in place around December of 2021 as the lieutenant/head of the agency.”

After his appointment to lieutenant, Gilman went through a three-stage process to make sure he was ready for the new leadership position. This included a seven-month evaluation and professional plan, plus an interview, with the town's selectboard.

He said he is currently in talks with the town about his salary. His focus is on his new role.

“I'm happy to be the chief of the Tilton Police Department,” Gilman said, “I’m also happy I’m with the community I was born and raised in. I graduated from Winnisquam in 2001, and this is my community.”