{"id":231917,"date":"2026-06-30T15:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/231917\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:53:14","slug":"reading-police-force-veteran-fills-needed-role-in-city-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/231917\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading police force veteran fills needed role in city | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

READING, Pa. \u2014 Answering questions, listening to concerns and being a liaison between the community and the Reading police sum up Lt. Lance Lillis’ job in a nutshell.<\/p>\n

“When we see something go on and people reach out,” Lillis said, “I’m going to be the one they reach out to.”<\/p>\n

He’s RPD’s community engagement officer, and it’s a role he takes very seriously.<\/p>\n

“My job is to really, kind of really get in there and talk to people,” Lillis said.<\/p>\n

It’s his second week in the new position and Lillis is running damage control with several shootings, one of which took the life of a 16-year-old boy, and a community on high alert. He’s there to offer communication.<\/p>\n

“As important as it is to give that information and kind of quell people’s fears as to the violence that’s going on,” Lillis said, “it’s also a great information-gathering tool.”<\/p>\n

\"Reading<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Caitlin Rearden | 69 News<\/p>\n

In contrast to officers on patrol or investigators working crime scenes, Lillis has the time to give the people of Reading, and it’s a big job, because for many, what he does is invaluable.<\/p>\n

“We could probably have five guys like me and still be deficient,” Lillis shared, “but at least, right now, we have one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 Answering questions, listening to concerns and being a liaison between the community and the Reading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,31,82400,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-231917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-crime","tag-editors_top_picks","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}