Other Cities Recruit Memphis Native for Police Chief
While Memphis Finally Starts Its Formal Search
While
local news media press Mayor Jim Strickland about the city’s murder rate
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| Anne Kirkpatrick |
and a search for a new police chief, one nationally prominent candidate for
top cop in Chicago and other cities is a Memphis hometowner.
Strickland
was reported as saying February 15 that the city would retain the search
services of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and that the
process would begin within three weeks.
More than 11 weeks later, the city has just finished getting its information to the search organization, and the job was officially posted late today May 6. Deadline for submissions is June 17. While Memphis has an interim chief in place, and the mayor would say, better to get it right than get it fast, movement on a new chief would quell clamor and uncertainty.
The
Chicago Police Board sifted through 39 candidates and spent $500,000 to conduct
a search for a new superintendent of police after Garry McCarthy was fired in
the wake of a scandal over a police officer killing 17-year-old Laquan
McDonald.
One
of three finalists for the Chicago job was former Spokane, Washington, police
chief Anne Kirkpatrick, who grew up in Memphis and served as a patrol officer
for more than three years in Memphis, 1982-1985.
Dysfunction in the Windy City
If
there is any comfort to Memphians in knowing that other cities have trouble getting
out of their own way, consider this: Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel rejected the board’s three candidates and named his pick from the
existing Chicago police force – but only to be an interim chief, replacing the “old”
interim chief of five months.
Emanuel offered the job to DeKalb County, Georgia, director of public safety Cedric Alexander, but then withdrew the offer under pressure from certain Chicago council members and political powers who insisted on a local guy. Alexander, along with Kirkpatrick, were the top two police chief candidates -- not from Chicago -- who were selected during that city's search.
Strickland
has asked interim Director of Police Services Michael Rallings to apply for the
permanent post, and Rallings says he will apply.
There
are two schools of thought on the subject of a new, permanent chief – that it
should be someone who came up through the ranks of the Memphis department, or
it specifically should be someone with a fresh perspective from outside.
Inside Out
If
any candidate is uniquely positioned to bridge both those concepts it is
Kirkpatrick, who presently travels the country as an instructor for the FBI's Law Enforcement Executive Development Association. As such, she teaches leadership to executives in local agencies and covers such topics as the problem employee, credibility, discipline and liability.
This
week Kirkpatrick was in Arizona teaching a class. But, it seems Memphis is never far from her
mind. In fact, Kirkpatrick’s’ parents
and two brothers live in Memphis, and she seems to find herself in Memphis
regularly – sometimes for work with the FBI and sometimes to visit – as
recently as last weekend.
“I’m
a change agent,” Kirkpatrick said while on a break between class sessions. “I think I would be a good fit for Memphis.
“Memphis
has almost double the murder rate per capita as Chicago,” Kirkpatrick noted.
“What
I am looking for is to be a part of a city and police department that wants to
really change the culture of violence,” Kirkpatrick said. “Chicago met that
criteria. Memphis meets that.
A Time to Heal
“I
want to come into an agency that struggles or has some major issues, and I want
to be part of the healing of that. I
actually think I would be a good healing leader for them and could set them on
a course for an excellent future.
“As
a community, too, Memphis needs to not accept the level of cultural violence
that they have accepted. They play a
part in that as well.
“If
I were to apply for the Memphis job it would be as an outsider with an insider’s
foundation,” said Kirkpatrick, who also is a licensed attorney in Washington.
