Police chief finalists are all familiar faces
Field to succeed Garcia dominated by internal candidates after two drop out
SAN JOSE >> The search for San Jose’s next police chief essentially became an in-house contest Jan. 26 when the Minneapolis police chief took himself out of the running less than 24 hours after he was announced as a finalist, leaving five veterans of the city’s police force making up the selection pool.
San Jose City Manager David Sykes released a memo Jan. 25 that named six finalists for San Jose police chief: SJPD acting Chief David Tindall, deputy chiefs Anthony Mata and Heather Randol, Capt. Jason Ta, Piedmont police Chief Jeremy Bowers — an SJPD alum — and Minneapolis police Chief Medaria Arradondo.
Arradondo withdrew his name from consideration Jan. 26, according to a statement released by the Minneapolis Police Department.
He was the second finalist to drop out at the eleventh hour. Jan. 25, the other non-sjpd-affiliated candidate, former Oakland chief Anne Kirkpatrick, did the same, hours before she was set to be announced as a finalist to lead police in the nation’s 10th-largest city.
News reports in Minneapolis indicated that Arradondo did not engage in talks with San Jose officials and that his application involvement was limited to responding to a recruiter and sending in a
résumé.
“While humbled and honored to be considered, Chief Arradondo wishes to thank San Jose city officials, the recruitment firm and mostly the people of San Jose for the kind and gracious invitation to participate in their upcoming process,” the MPD statement reads.
The now-fleeting consideration of Arradondo was met with some disbelief by local civil rights leaders, given that he was leading the department last summer when one of his police officers, Derek Chauvin, knelt on George
Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes and killed him, spurring the protests that engulfed the city, and country, for weeks after.
Related protests in San Jose last summer led to violent clashes between police and demonstrators and a torrent of criticism for SJPD because of their aggression and prolific use of rubber bullets and tear gas on crowds.
“Why would we take him here to make things better when so much was going on in his own department?” the Rev. Jethroe Moore, president of the San Jose-silicon Valley
NAACP, said after the initial announcement. “I don’t think that’s what we need right now.”
The finalist announcement came about three months after San Jose began a nationwidesearchforanewchief and about five months after recent SJPD Chief Eddie Garcia announced his retirement from the department. Garcia, who spent 28 years on San Jose’s police force, has since accepted a new role as the chief of police in Dallas.
San Jose received a total of 18 applicants for the position — 14 of whom were men and four were women. Eight of the candidates identified as White, seven as Black, two as Latino and one as Asian-american,
according to Sykes’ memo.
Now, the five remaining finalists are current or former commanders with in the department, made up of four men and one woman. Two are White, one is Black, one is Latino, and one is of Vietnamese descent.
The city extended its applicant deadline at the beginning of the year, with some city insiders noting that it did not include enough outside applicants. And at first glance, the inclusion of Bowers and Ta also appears to stretch the city’s own advertised requirements of five years serving a high-command position at a large municipal police department.
Before Arradondo dropped out, Sykes said inastatementthathewas “pleased with the diversity of the six finalists who were selected based on a review of their qualifications, a screening interview performed by the recruiter and an evaluation of their resumes against the skills and knowledge outlined in the recruitment brochure.”
Moore contends the pool makeup is partly a product of San Jose and Santa Clara County being “punished by its own success,” with a robust economy accompanied by a high cost of living that makes national job candidates for the city think twice.
Garcia, who is set to start leading Dallas police next month, voiced his support for internal candidates who weathered a tough decade for the department that saw political strife severely deplete its ranks.
“I realize it’s difficult to get qualified candidates at this moment in time, but the standard should not be lowered,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that the internal candidates that have sacrificed so much to remain with this police department, that could have left but chose to stay through our darkest times, that have helped raised this department up from the ashes, are given an opportunity to lead the SJPD.”
Moorehadamorecautious perspective about selecting a department stalwart — though the candidate pool doesn’t offer any alternatives — pointing to last summer’s protest response as a reason to consider someone capable of resetting the internal attitudes that fueled it.
“The culture of policing, in general, has to change,” he said. “Whoever comes here has to look at that.”