Raised by Hudson: A Story of Grief, Understanding, and a New Kind of Police Chief

How Mishanda Franklin is reshaping public safety with empathy, memory, and a deep sense of home.

When I asked Mishanda Franklin, Hudson’s chief of police, to meet me for an interview down by the river, I didn’t know that I’d chosen the exact spot with a bench dedicated to her grandmother, Mary Ellen. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Chief Franklin – or “Shani” as those close to her call her – is as Hudson as they come. After spending nearly her entire life here, she is the person now responsible for keeping our community safe.

Mishanda’s path to this role is one of grief, community, and resilience. Her biological mother died while incarcerated when Mishanda was just a year old. Her father, also in and out of prison throughout her childhood, was largely absent. She was adopted by Donna Franklin, her father’s aunt – the woman who has always been Mom to her – and grew up in a household with her mom, aunt, great-grandmother, and two cousins. Her sister, though close in age, grew up in a different household, raised by their grandmother on their father’s side. The two girls attended separate elementary schools but remained close, spending afternoons together nearly every day.

Despite these early hardships, Mishanda’s face lit up when she talked about her childhood. She grew up in the heart of Hudson on the 200 block of State Street. She spent her days at Oakdale Park, the Boys and Girls Club (now the Youth Department), playing kickball at John L. Edwards, and shooting hoops at Bliss Towers. She was free to roam Hudson – her family was well-known in the community and folks kept tabs on her – but she knew she was expected home before the streetlights turned on.

Mishanda as a child with her mother, Donna Franklin.

As a teenager, Mishanda worked with Operation Unite — a local organization focused on empowering youth and preserving Black cultural heritage in Hudson. She grew up surrounded by adults who poured their hearts into young people in our community, and she’s continued that tradition. Today, she serves as the assistant coach for the Hudson High School girls varsity basketball team, regularly pops into Greater Hudson Promise Neighborhood’s programs (with her daughter, Zoey, in tow), and is known to surprise the after-school crowd with ice cream. She serves on the planning committees for Greater Hudson Movement Day and the Hudson Family Reunion, two local community celebrations. Her presence isn’t performative — it’s baked into her daily life.

But long before she became a coach and mentor, Mishanda was a kid herself — carrying a weight that few could see. When Mishanda was a teenager, her mom got sick. After years of watching her decline, her mom passed away when Mishanda was just sixteen years old. Her father would die a few years later. Mishanda had experienced more loss during her childhood than many people experience in their lifetimes. It would have been easy to become detached or hardened. But instead, these experiences seem to have opened her heart. When I asked her about these losses, she responded beautifully. “I carry a piece of everyone I’ve lost with me, every day.” She feels her people with her, even when they’re not top of mind. It’s a feeling that resonates deeply with me too.

That sense of presence — of carrying her people with her — is something Mishanda brings into every space she enters. Mishanda’s history with loss and incarceration has left her with a compassionate and nuanced understanding of why people do what they do. She refuses to reduce people to their worst decisions. Instead, she seeks to understand. In our conversation, she highlighted the importance of giving people a voice without taking sides or injecting your own opinion. Again and again she returned to the theme of understanding – not as a buzzword, but as a core practice. So often, and especially in law enforcement, it is easy to forget the dignity, the humanity, of each and every person. Mishanda strives to always remember.

Mishanda didn’t plan to enter policing. After she graduated from Hudson High School, she was curious about why people do what they do and attended Arizona State to study psychology. After a year there, she transferred to NYU and switched her major to sociology. She had enjoyed learning about human behavior, but she was interested in the social context – how do people’s environments shape who they are?

She was studying at NYU when the entire world changed. On September 11, 2001, she watched New York City’s skyline change – and her path changed with it. She witnessed the first responders showing up for their community with compassion and grace. She got in touch with Chief Ellis Richardson back home in Hudson – and she ultimately decided to join the Hudson Police Department.

Chief Franklin giving the commencement address for Hudson High School’s graduating class of 2024.

I’ve admired Mishanda for a long time. She was one of my mom, Lisa Dolan’s, favorite students in elementary school. I was the ball girl for her varsity soccer team, coached by my uncle Pat Maloy, when I was a kid. But I got to know her better five years ago, when Hudson launched a community-police relations committee called PARC. At the time, I was working as a data scientist, and I volunteered to help design and implement a citywide survey to better understand how residents view the police. Mishanda wasn’t Chief yet, but I spent hours with her walking through the results, talking about accountability, trust, and what change could look like in our city. I was struck by her openness – how willing she was to listen, to reflect, and then to take action.

I was also amazed by the stories that people told in that survey, specifically about Mishanda, who was then a Lieutenant. I had expected — especially given the national reckoning around policing in 2020 — the write-in responses to be complaints, stories of dissatisfaction with the police department. But instead, I learned about how Mishanda had gotten kids out of tough situations and then drove them home and talked to their families. How she walked into tense, high-stakes situations and was able to de-escalate them, leading to a safe, positive outcome. How respondents who admitted to wrongdoing described Mishanda as someone who saw their worth, who knew that they were more than a mistake they had made. I was moved to tears by some of the personal accounts of people in our community, and I learned then how unique and special Mishanda’s approach to policing is.

Chief Franklin with three of her female colleagues from Hudson Police Department.

Since then, Mishanda has only deepened her commitment – not only to law enforcement but to understanding the people of this community. “Policing has shifted,” she told me. “You have to meet people where they’re at. If you can go into something with understanding, it goes a long way.”

That idea that she expressed – leading with empathy instead of authority – feels baked into every decision that she makes. When she was promoted to Chief, she didn’t come in swinging a hammer. She started a therapy dog program. She pushed for more police presence at community events. She organized a National Night Out event – a celebration of police and community relationship – which is entering its third year. She invites feedback and she sits with it. “We can do more than just respond when bad things happen,” she said. “We can be more.”

Chief Franklin with her team on the day she became Chief. She is the first woman to serve in this role in Hudson. She was nine months pregnant when she was sworn in.

Mishanda’s promotion itself was a statement. She was nine months pregnant when she stepped into the role of Chief – an image that quietly redefined what leadership can look like. "Being promoted as a woman — a woman who was nine months pregnant — to Chief is a pretty pivotal moment in my life." Mishanda is the first woman, the first woman of color, and the first LGBTQ+ person to serve as the Chief of HPD. When I asked her about what that felt like, she said that, although she feels proud, she doesn’t define herself by any of these traits. “It’s only part of who I am,” she said.

Motherhood threads through every part of her life and her leadership. She and her wife, Erika, who co-owns Hudson Strength Lab (where Mishanda, a certified weightlifting coach, leads an Olympic lifting class on Tuesday evenings), are raising their daughter Zoey here in Hudson. Mishanda is pregnant with their second child now. Their family is rooted here, growing here, and is part of the future she’s hoping to build here.

Mishanda and her wife, Erika, and their daughter, Zoey.

For a city like Hudson, one that is small and layered, deeply impacted by generational poverty and gentrification, it matters who leads the police. Mishanda is not an outsider who came here with grand ideas about how to run this force. She was brought up by Hudson. She remembers the people who used to sit on porches in her neighborhood. She remembers the corners that she played on as a kid. She remembers who used to own which stores on Warren Street. These memories guide her understanding of this community and inform how she approaches public safety.

When I asked her how she would define safety, she had a poignant answer. “It’s a feeling. Belonging, understanding, support.” How lucky we are in this community – one where longtime families are being displaced, newcomers are arriving weekly, and there is rich diversity in race, class, ethnicity, and otherwise – to have a police chief who defines safety as belonging.

Her rootedness here isn’t just sentimental — it’s practical. Research shows that trust in law enforcement is higher when officers have local ties. A 2019 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that community policing efforts, which emphasize building relationships and understanding community values, can significantly improve public trust and perceptions of police legitimacy. Mishanda has made understanding the people in her community central to how she engages with us all.

She also rejects the idea that leadership requires posturing or perfection. She leads from the inside out — always attuned to her humanity. “I lead from my heart,” she told me. “The decisions I make affect me, the department, the city — and my family.”

Mishanda and her family on the day that she was sworn in as Police Chief.

Her dream for Hudson’s future is simple: that families who are here now will still be here in ten years. That the people she grew up with — and the people who came after — still feel like they belong.

And as for her own legacy? When I asked her how she herself would want to be remembered, she said, “I’d like people to say that I cared about the people around me. And that I was a good mom.”

In a profession that so often teaches people to stay guarded, Chief Franklin offers vulnerability, compassion, and an unwavering belief that safety starts with understanding each other. Her hope is that when someone in the community comes into contact with the Hudson Police Department, they feel a sense of relief. She’s seeing glimpses of it already – moments when her officers respond with grace, even under pressure, and choose empathy over escalation. One interaction at a time, Chief Franklin is building something more solid than policy – a culture. A way of being. A reminder that people can change, and systems can too. And if anyone can get us there, someone who has known loss, known this place, and chosen again and again to show up with care – it’s her.