SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) -- In San Jose, the search for the next police chief comes to a halt.
The city of San Jose continues its search for the next police chief as former police chief Eddie Garcia retired in December after nearly 30 years with the department.
Now, the city is pausing the selection process for another few weeks.
“What we were after from the beginning was a diverse candidate pool and a candidate pool that included internal and external perspectives and so that’s what we’re striving for and we’re looking forward to the next steps in that process,” City Manager David Sykes said.
In the past, the city has looked internally to fill the job as veteran cops were promoted to the permanent post -- similar to Garcia and the same with his predecessor Larry Esquivel.
The process to hire a new police chief grew complicated as the only outside finalist -- Minneapolis Chief Medaria Arradondo -- withdrew his name from consideration last week.
The news prompted Sykes to pause the selection process for two more weeks.
“Early on we committed to doing an external and internal recruitment process for our police chief position and that’s honestly the way we do most of our executive recruitments is to have an eternal and external recruitment process,” Sykes said.
“And I will tell you that our internal candidates whether it's in the police department or other departments compete extremely well for these jobs,” Sykes added.
“But once in a while we see an external candidate that may be interesting for us to be able to put in a job.”
Residents and activists have continued to voice their concerns that internal candidates won’t bring much-needed change to a department that is still rebuilding after pension reform led to many officers departing from the department.
Sykes tells KRON4 that citizens need a police chief with different perspectives especially at a time when police departments around the nation are facing constant pressure to be more transparent.
“Having a diverse pool of candidates just gives us all the opportunity to kind of see different perspectives and that’s what's important,” Sykes said.
“And I also think somebody who is comfortable with the exchanges with our communities across the country are asking for in terms of how police work is done but also recognizing that we need to keep our community safe.”
The only other external candidate is Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers -- who previously worked 20 years as a San Jose Police officer.
The other five finalists currently work for SJPD.
The city is now waiting to see if they can shore up more external candidates in hopes to announce a new Chief of Police at the beginning of March.
In addition, the city's Police Chief Candidate Forum has been moved to Saturday, Feb. 13 at 10 a.m.
Residents can submit proposed questions for Chief of Police candidates to answer online.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/39JmKzi
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