Jupiter chief is choice to lead school district force
Jupiter Police Chief Frank Kitzerow has been selected as the Palm Beach County public schools’ next police chief, signaling a new direction for school police amid heightened angst about campus security.
Schools Superintendent Donald Fennoy’s decision this week to hire Kitzerow comes as the school district rushes to recruit officers and persuade other departments to help it in complying with a new requirement that all schools have armed security.
armed security.
As chief, Kitzerow will steer an unsettled 160-officer department that is seeking to expand and adjust to new expectations for school security in the wake of the Parkland school shooting in February.
Underscoring the tense conditions, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw announced Friday that he would lend 10 deputies to the school district to guard elementary schools next school year, rejecting the district’s request for 50 officers as unrealistic given his agency’s commitments.
That announcement leaves the school district searching to find about three dozen more officers to comply with a new state law calling for armed officers at every public school when classes resume in August. The district has struck tentative deals with 11 city police forces to patrol elementary schools in their towns.
Before selecting Kitzerow, Fennoy ousted Chief Lawrence Leon, who had served six years, and restructured the chief’s job into a high-level position. The Jupiter chief ’s hiring has to be approved by the school board, which will take up the matter Wednesday.
In announcing his appointment, Fennoy praised Kitzerow’s long and varied professional career.
“We are extremely fortunate to have someone with Chief Kitzerow’s breadth and depth of experience to lead our school district police department,” Fennoy said in a statement.
Kitzerow, 61, spent 13 years as Jupiter’s police chief, a tenure marked by several high-profile criminal cases. Last year he earned $147,000.
Among the high-profile cases: a monthlong manhunt for the suspect in a Thanksgiving Day 2009 killing that left four dead, the 2016 arrest of a top Donald Trump presidential campaign aide on misdemeanor battery charges and the killing last year of three young adults in a rental home.
Before that, he played a key role in another high-profile case: the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings in 2002.
At the time, he was a major at the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department and commanded a 16-agency task force to sort through tens of thousands of tips during the search for the killers.
Last year, he appli ed unsuccessfully to be Jupiter’s town manager. He also faced a lawsuit in April 2017 from his homeowners association over $1,600 in unpaid dues before reaching a settlement in August.
The pay range for the revamped chief position is $112,500 to $178,500.