Staff photo / Ed Runyan Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and newly promoted detective sergeant Hannah Short share a laugh during the swearing in ceremony for Short’s promotion.

YOUNGSTOWN — The swearing-in ceremony for the Youngstown Police Department’s newest detective sergeant took on a family feel Thursday as Hannah Short took the oath of office in front of her fellow officer husband, parents and two small children.

She thanked crowd in the overflowing training room at the Youngstown Police Department for the support everyone has given her during her “really good experience the last 11 or 12 years that I’ve worked here.”

Her husband, Youngstown Patrolman Jacob Short, then pinned her badge on her jacket and congratulated her as their children, ages 6 and 2, watched with their grandparents.

As detective sergeant, Short filled an opening that occurred recently because of a retirement. She had the top score on the promotional exam for the position.

She will begin her duties within a couple of months through the job bidding process, she said. Detective sergeants work as detectives but also work as supervisors in the patrol division.

She has worked the last nine years as an officer in the police department’s Special Victims Unit, which was previously called the Family Investigative Services Unit.

Her father, Robert Banks, a retired captain in the Youngstown Fire Department, said he expected Hannah to get a promotion, calling her a “go getter.” Her mother, Rita Banks, said she is “extremely proud and also very nervous. But this is what she wanted to do.”

In his remarks, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said the job will involve some “new roles and responsibilities, but some of those old responsibilities will still be there. She’ll still have to be a mother, a wife, daughter, niece, but also make sure no matter when you see her, you talk to her, just check in with her.”

Capt. Jason Simon, who supervises the detectives, including officers in the Special Victims Unit, said a good detective uses “persistence, outside-the-box-thinking and just as importantly the ability to have empathy with your victims, especially when you are in a unit like the Special Victims Unit.”

He said Short “meets and exceeds all of those qualities. She shows initiative and integrity in her investigations.”