Knecht served with distinction and deserved a much better farewell
It was a peculiar and messy ending for a police chief whose years in office were largely devoid of peculiar mess.
On Wednesday night, the news broke that Rod Knecht, who has been chief of the Edmonton Police Service since 2011, would not have his contract renewed by the Edmonton Police Commission.
That was a surprise, given that Knecht had suggested to a number of journalists he was interested in a contract extension.
On Friday morning, the situation got weirder. Knecht issued a written statement, saying he’d asked to stay on until the end of June 2019 to tie up loose ends, manage the transition and oversee a number of major capital and operational projects. According to Knecht’s public letter, the commissioners had initially approved his request to stay on one more year. But then, he said, they changed their minds — and told him they’d like to extend his contract to March 2019 instead.
For Knecht, that was apparently a deal-breaker. He turned down the shorter extension. Now, he’s leaving in October 2018, allowing for considerably less transition time than originally planned.
Knecht couldn’t speak to reporters in person Friday — he was spending time with his dying father. But police commission chairman Tim O’Brien praised Knecht as a “transformative” leader who had taken over a police department in chaos and turned it around.
O’Brien dismissed as “preposterous” any suggestion of a toxic or dysfunctional relationship between Knecht and the commissioners.
Their relationship, he said carefully, was “professional and correct” — although he acknowledged what he called a “natural tension” between the chief and the independent commission that oversees the police service.
The commissioners, he said, simply wanted to find Knecht’s replacement as expeditiously as possible. Their goal, he told gathered reporters, was to have a new chief in place within four to six months, in time for Knecht’s departure.
I don’t blame Knecht for feeling hurt or disappointed that the commission turned down his request. He served Edmonton well and with distinction, and he clearly wasn’t ready to leave yet. But to be honest, a quick, clean break isn’t a bad plan.
Knecht has been an effective and respected chief, who restored much of the public confidence and public dignity the EPS leadership had lost over the previous two decades.
But a one-year contract extension had the potential to create all kinds of awkwardness. It could have made Knecht a lame-duck chief, wandering EPS headquarters like Pope Benedict in the Vatican gardens, a leader without true authority.
It wouldn’t have been healthy for the EPS to keep Knecht around, like King Lear, with rival internal candidates vying to succeed him, jostling for power.
Still, Knecht deserved better than this clumsily handled dismissal.
The RCMP veteran took over an Edmonton police department that had been in disarray for a decade, with five chiefs or acting chiefs in just 10 years.
That power instability created a highly politicized department, riven by cliques and factions. Meanwhile, there were repeated issues with officers abusing their powers and not being held accountable for their actions.
Knecht cleaned house. He ran a tight ship. On his watch, there was a tremendous staff turnover: older officers left and hundreds of new hires came in. In that sense, Knecht put his mark on the EPS for years to come.
He made his share of enemies with the rank-and-file. But he earned the respect of longtime police critics.
And he led the department with measured calm through several high-profile and difficult cases, including the Travis Baumgartner HUB Mall shootings, the Phu Lam family massacre,
He took on a job that seemed just about as cursed as being the defence against the dark arts teacher at Hogwarts, and he succeeded where so many had failed.
the murder of hate-crimes Const. Daniel Woodall by a Freemen on the Land extremist, and the alleged terrorist truck attack last summer.
Goodness knows his tenure wasn’t perfect. And in the last 18 months, the EPS instituted a bizarre new privacy policy where police suddenly started keeping the names of certain homicide victims and suspects private. There were times when the chief didn’t seem to understand that policy or its implications.
But Knecht was Edmonton’s longest-serving chief since Robert Lunney in the 1970s.
He took on a job that seemed just about as cursed as being the defence against the dark arts teacher at Hogwarts, and he succeeded where so many had failed.
It’s time for new leadership now, time for generational change, time, perhaps, for senior leadership that better reflects the diversity of Edmonton today. But the city owes Knecht a debt. And he leaves the city he served a powerful legacy.