Saturday, November 21, 2009

ONGOING COVERAGE: POLICE CHIEF SEARCH

Four vie for top cop

City names 4 of 5 finalists for chief position

Public forums The public will get a chance to meet and talk to the candidates at three public forums July 10-12.

Jody Lawrence-Turner And Benjamin Shors
Staff writers
June 28, 2006

The mayor's office has released the names of four finalists for Spokane police chief.

Three are from Washington: internal candidate Deputy Chief Bruce Roberts, Federal Way Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick and Seattle Police Department Criminal Investigations Bureau's Assistant Chief Linda Eschenfelder, said city spokeswoman Marlene Feist. The fourth candidate is Roger L. Peterson, police chief of the Rochester, Minn., police department.

A fifth finalist withdrew his name from consideration, city officials said today.

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The pool of applicants was narrowed from 43 people in 15 states, including four from the city Police Department. The position pays up to $140,000 annually.

The new chief replaces Roger Bragdon, whose last day on the job was Dec. 16. Deputy Chief Jim Nicks has been acting chief since Dec. 19.

A Seattle consulting company, Waldron & Co., city officials and a police search committee appointed by Mayor Dennis Hession have been poring over applications and resumes since June 9.

•Roger L. Peterson has led the police department in Rochester, Minn., since 1998. He joined the department in 1981 and holds a degree in criminology and psychology from the University of Minnesota.

As Rochester's police chief, Peterson oversees 170 employees and a $15 million budget. In rapidly growing Rochester, the state's third-largest city, the crime rate has dropped substantially since 1980, according to media reports.

"One of the key components of that is the community involvement," Peterson told Minnesota Public Radio this spring, "and having the schools involved and having us involved in that effort, in particular where we can interdict and things before they happen."

Community involvement is a quality Hession has insisted the next police chief possess.

But Rochester has not been free of controversy. Last year, the city agreed to a $900,000 settlement with a Sudanese refugee, shot by an officer who mistakenly fired his .40-caliber Glock handgun instead of a stun gun. In 2003, Peterson sharply criticized a report from the University of Minnesota that found statewide police were more than twice as likely to search the vehicles of black drivers. Peterson said incorrect data skewed the findings, according to media reports.

•Kirkpatrick has been chief of the Federal Way Police Department since January 2001 and commands 158 employees in King County's third largest city.

The Federal Way Police Department had only been in operation for nine years when she was appointed chief.

She has been praised by Federal Way city officials as being "a dynamic leader who listens to other people in the city and the community," according to the Federal Way Mirror newspaper.

But recently her department has taken heat over a case in which a puppy was doused with acid, according to a Seattle Times article.

Critics say King County animal-control officers and Federal Way police have been passing the buck between each other, but Kirkpatrick was quoted as saying: "It is horrific and it is heart-wrenching, and if there is a case to be made, we want to make it."

Based on a variety of news articles, Kirkpatrick's key points as a law enforcement leader have been overall crime reduction and being as involved as possible with the people in her department.

In Ellensburg, where she was police chief from 1996 to 2000, she went out on patrol once a week.

Kirkpatrick started her law enforcement career in Tennessee where she was a police officer in Redmond and Memphis between 1982 and 1995.

She has also been an FBI instructor and was director of the Criminal Justice Program at Green River Community College in Auburn from 1995-1996.

Kirkpatrick holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from King College in Bristol, Tenn., a master's degree in counseling from the University of Memphis, and a law degree from Seattle University.

•Since 2005, assistant Seattle Police Chief Linda Pierce has led the city's sprawling criminal investigations bureau, which includes homicides, fraud, narcotics and crime scene investigation units.

Pierce joined the department in 1981, rising from an officer to a detective sergeant in Seattle's first community policing unit in the late 1980s. She graduated from Syracuse University in 1980 and obtained a law degree from the University of Puget Sound Law School in 1988.

Pierce was lead writer on the department's action report on the World Trade Organization protests in 1999, which resulted in 600 arrests and millions of dollars in property damage. The Seattle City Council's probe team accused the department of hampering the council's own investigation by failing to obey the state's public disclosure laws – a charge Pierce disputed, according to an article in the Times in 2000.

This month, Pierce and federal officials announced a massive drug bust in Seattle that resulted in the arrest of a dozen dealers who cumulatively sold some $20,000 in heroin each day in the city, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

•Roberts has been with the Spokane Police Department for 31 years.

During that time he has overseen several areas of the department including patrol, dispatch communications, training, investigations and community services.

The deputy chief is currently in charge of the K-9, traffic, SWAT, tactical, hostage negotiations and dignitary protection units.

Roberts was promoted to sergeant in 1984, lieutenant in 1988, captain in 1996 and deputy chief last year.

Unlike the four other identified candidates, Roberts doesn't have a college degree. However, he believes his training, especially in Homeland Security, and experience make up for the lack of a degree, he said.

"If I had gotten a degree 30 years ago, what good would it be with all the changes now," Roberts said.

Traditionally, Spokane police chiefs have been selected from within the department with only a few exceptions.

"This is a critical appointment for the city and our community," Mayor Hession said in a prepared statement. "We are asking citizens, employees and volunteers to help us determine the best candidate for Spokane."