Hickory Police Department

Jurisdiction and responsibilities

Hickory Police Department serves residents and visitors within the City of Hickory. The city crosses county boundaries; its resident guidance identifies Catawba, Burke, and Caldwell as the counties relevant to city residents. A Hickory mailing address alone is therefore not a complete description of the responding agency or county. Floyd W. Lucas, Jr. Police Headquarters is at 347 2nd Avenue SW. The police contact number is 828-328-5551. The city's general address at 76 North Center Street is City Hall, not police headquarters. Emergencies should be directed to 911.

How the agency is organized

The department describes three principal operational areas: Patrol, Criminal Investigations, and Support Services. Patrol responds to calls and works through decentralized supervision that allows officers to address recurring neighborhood problems. Criminal Investigations handles both reactive and proactive investigations. Support Services supplies the resources that enable the other functions to operate. The police FAQ directs report requests to the headquarters Records Division and provides a separate online crash-report link. It also describes an appointment-based fingerprinting service and a home-watch program. These service routes are useful when identifying the office responsible for a record or an operational request.

Agency history and local context

A significant part of Hickory's departmental history is Police and Community Together, or P.A.C.T. The city's accounts agree that the program began in Ridgeview and developed into a citywide approach based on relationships between officers and neighborhoods. The same initials also represent the department's values: professionalism, accountability, compassion, and teamwork. Official pages disagree on the program's starting year, so this profile does not assign one or treat the program as the department's founding.

Official records and officer resources

Hickory's Human Resources page is the official starting point for employee benefits, forms, policies, training, risk management, and wellness information. Several of its employee links lead to the city's SharePoint service; the public landing page does not itself establish the contents or applicability of an employee grievance procedure. HR publishes 828-323-7421 for assistance. Applicants can follow the city employment link and the department's recruitment materials for current openings. Existing officers should obtain the current policy and relevant notices from the employer when researching a personnel issue, rather than relying on a recruiting summary as an employment rule.

FBI data · 2025

The following figures are from the FBI’s 2025 published agency tables. They describe a reporting period, not current staffing or an assessment of agency performance.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer downloads, table 8; published agency label: Hickory. CIUS_Table_8_Offenses_Known_to_Law_Enforcement_by_State_by_City_2025.xlsx

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer downloads, table 78; published agency label: Hickory. Table_78_Full_time_Law_Enforcement_Employees_by_State_by_Cities_2025.xlsx

Blank or unavailable values remain “Not published.” Participating agencies and reporting scope vary. Campus figures concern the reporting institution; a city name does not expand them to all local residents. Read the data definitions and limitations.

NC SBI data · 2024

The NC SBI record is published under Hickory. Its 2024 reporting-status table lists: Reporting. These earlier figures are presented separately from the FBI’s 2025 tables.

Published Index-crime total: 1,448.

Sources: SBI agency reporting status · SBI law-enforcement personnel · SBI Index offenses by agency in county.

Personnel are a dated full-time payroll snapshot. Civilian classifications can include jail employees without outside police powers. These are not authorized-position or vacancy counts. Index-crime totals cover selected categories and are not totals of all crime.

Sources and review date

Official agency, government and institutional sources are linked below. Contact details and organizational information were reviewed September 24, 2026. Published statistical years are identified separately.

• Police department overview and divisions
• Police FAQ: headquarters and services
• Resident Essentials: county information
• Police and Community Together
• Patrol Division: alternate P.A.C.T. chronology
• City Human Resources and employee resource links