How will Dayton hire its new police chief?
Police reform group members want say in selection process.
— Dayton will seek new leadership for its police department at a critical juncture for police reform efforts and at a time when law enforcement is under extra scrutiny.
Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl announced Tuesday that he will be retiring in July. The city said they will begin a search to replace him this month with the hopes of hiring someone in October.
Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein said the city will conduct an “open search with robust community input.”
“We will hire an executive search firm,” Dickstein said. “To support that search firm, we will create a selection oversight committee that will include city leadership, a former police chief and representatives from the police reform workgroups.”
A Dayton police reform group focused on recruitment and promotion last month recommended the city involve community members in the selection of the next police chief.
The group has asked the city to let community members help create the description of the position and include “reform orientation” as a requirement of the job.
The police reform committee also recommended that community members take part in the interview process and members of the reform committees be involved in the hiring process.
The city said the Selection Oversight Committee will include police reform committee members William Gillespie, Serida Lowery and Jeff Jackson.
“The SOC will be working over the next several weeks to build the position profile which serves as the formal advertisement for the position,” the city said in a statement. “The selection process will include substantial inputs from a variety of perspectives: community stakeholders, neighborhood presidents, reform implementation group members and city staff.”
The community should get an opportunity to question and engage with police chief candidates who make the final cut, and the police department needs a leader who is committed to improving diversity on the force, Travis Dunnington, a member of the reform committee focused on recruitment, said earlier this year.
The city should look for “someone who can carry on ... making this department look more like the community and act like they’re serving the community,” he said.
Ellis Jacobs, another member of the recruitment committee, said the community and the city can learn about candidates by having them interact with each other.
Ken Couch, Dayton’s human resource director, previously said he reached out to an executive search firm the city has used for the last six years to help with replacement hires.
Couch said he asked the search firm to provide information about how it has included community engagement in police chief recruiting efforts.
He said it’s important the community has “input, a stake and buy-in” during the selection process.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said communities across the country have come up empty on police chief searches lately.
Some people say the candidate pool for police chiefs in larger cities has gotten smaller and the search processes have received additional scrutiny.
Officials say the city is focusing efforts on finding an “ideal candidate that will be expected to continue to build on the work” already started by the city commission and police reform initiative. The city said the focus now shifts to implementation of recommended reforms and strengthening police-community relations.
Earlier this week, the Dayton City Commission announced the members of the new police reform implementation committee, which will monitor how the police reform group’s more than 140 recommendations are implemented over the next six months.
The committee’s main roles, according to the city, will be receiving updates on implementation efforts and providing feedback to create a “long-term accountability structure for police reform.”