Retired Police Chief Kim Jacobs deserves thanks for her service
Becoming the first person to do something is just half the battle; doing it well is harder. Just-retired Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs’ performance as the city’s first female police chief keeps the door open for others who aspire to follow in her footsteps — either as women police leaders or as openly gay officers.
Jacobs, 61, rightly recognized the burden she bore as a trailblazer.
“I don’t want to be the first-and-only. I want to be the first of many,” she said, noting, “If you’re not successful as the first, they might think that’s a bad experiment.”
The nearly 40-year veteran of the police division retired Friday after rising to the top from a minority group of women who still represent only about 11 percent of the city’s more than 1,800 officers and supervisors.
Jacobs said she wanted to leave the police division better from her almost seven years as chief. We believe she accomplished that mission, although much remains for her successor to tackle.
For her part, Jacobs deserves credit for not shirking responsibility and being open to new ideas while implementing some of her own.
Improving relations between police officers and the community they are sworn to protect remains an ongoing challenge that Jacobs’ replacement will need to address, but some of her innovations should be continued to help build trust between factions.
One of her accomplishments was to begin the division’s Citizen Police Academy, a 12-week program to provide a closer look at police operations while building rapport with participants. Better community connections was also a goal of bike patrols that Jacobs started in Linden and expanded to other neighborhoods.
It is appropriate that Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther named the division’s newest substation being built on Sancus Boulevard for Jacobs, given her efforts to improve neighborhood policing.
Jacobs’ leadership is also appreciated for her transparency, especially when it required her to acknowledge problems within the division. One high-profile example came when she requested the FBI’S public corruption task force last September to handle investigation of the division’s vice unit after an internal review produced information that the chief felt required an outside look.
Transparent about aspects of herself also, Jacobs made strides as the division’s first openly gay chief. And she acknowledged that facing discrimination in her own career helped fuel her support for efforts to double diversity within the division in the next decade.
Ginther won the right in November, as part of arbitrated contract provisions with the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, to conduct a national search for the division’s next chief. The mayor last month named Deputy Chief Tom Quinlan as acting chief pending the outcome of the search for Jacob’s successor. A group of community members is being formed to help Dawn Tyler Lee, Ginther’s deputy chief of staff for external relations, with the search.
As with many police departments across the country, the Columbus police division had its share of attention for use of deadly force under Jacob’s watch, and that will be an area the next chief must address to win support, especially within communities of color.
The city’s options for choosing a chief in 2012 were limited to internal candidates, but the search that netted Jacobs was nevertheless effective. Thank you, Chief Jacobs, for your service, and congratulations on well-earned retirement.