EX-FBI agent new public safety boss
Two days after Ned Pettus Jr. retired as the city’s Public Safety Director, Mayor Andrew J. Ginther announced a former FBI agent and international police chief as his replacement Friday.
Robert Clark, 54, a former FBI agent who had applied to be police chief, was named Ginther as Pettus’ successor at a news conference.
Ginther said Clark brought a wealth of experience to the position and that no other interviews were conducted in the search for a new director.
“When you find the right person, you hire them,” Ginther said.
Pettus retired Tuesday after more than four decades of public service in Columbus, serving as public safety director since 2016.
Pettus made $184,974 prior to his retirement. Clark will make a salary of $235,019 in his first year in the position, and will formally begin his duties on Sept. 26.
Clark was one of 34 applicants for the Columbus police chief job after former Chief Thomas Quinlan was demoted to
deputy chief in January. Clark was one of nine people interviewed before a final group of four candidates were named and new Columbus police Chief Elaine Bryant from Detroit was ultimately selected.
“The events of the past few years, and especially during the last year, have reminded and reaffirmed for us that we must deliver to our communities, and especially to those communities of color, service-oriented policing strategies,” Clark wrote in his application. “Furthermore, we must recruit and provide trained personnel, who have a high capacity of integrity and transparency, so that our work can be trusted.”
Clark had said he understands the feelings of mistrust, as he has been on both sides of policing.
“I personally know the impact of an unsolved homicide of a loved one as my own father was murdered when I was 13 years old,” Clark said.
Clark said his father’s homicide, which occurred on Jan. 15, 1980, was a life-changing event that drove him to a life in law enforcement.
“I didn’t know then that God had a bigger purpose for my life and for my pain,” Clark said.
Clark said he spent eight years in foster care and grew up in public housing in Youngstown. He said that has inspired him to work with at-risk youth throughout his career, empowering them to dream big.
Clark was an assistant special agentin-charge at the FBI’S Los Angeles field office from 1995 to 2016. He oversaw more than 350 agents and multiple task forces, according to his resume, including leading the national gang task force responsible for investigating MS-13.
During his tenure, Clark created the first of its kind virtual homicide library, converting paper files to digital files for use by FBI profilers and law enforcement.
Clark noted on his resume that he assembled a task force in collaboration with Los Angeles police to target gang homicides, cold cases and violent crime that resulted in more than 650 cold case homicides being solved and more than 600 arrests between 2010 and 2016.
Every family the task force was able to give closure to was part of his own healing process from his father’s homicide, which remains unsolved, he said.
“There was no justice (for me),” Clark said. “I got to see the individual who killed my father walk the streets when I was a Youngstown police officer.”
He began his law enforcement career with Youngstown police, where he worked from 1989-1995, including time as a vice and narcotics officer with the department’s special investigations unit and as a community officer and a community officer Downtown in that city.
After leaving the FBI, Clark went to work in 2017 in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as a senior strategist for a consulting group that assisted the dualisland Caribbean nation before he became the national police superintendent over its 1,600-member force in 2019. Clark’s resume states he left Trinidad and Tobago in November 2020 due to COVID-19.
Clark received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Youngstown State University, according to his resume. He received his PH.D in criminal justice and public safety from Capella University in Minneapolis, and is currently a doctoral candidate in organizational leadership and social justice at Adler University, a private, not-for-profit university in Chicago.
Clark said he has yet to meet with Columbus police Chief Elaine Bryant and top division command at the Division of Police or at the Division of Fire, but anticipates doing so in the coming weeks.
Ginther said Clark inherits the task originally given to Pettus of doubling the number of diverse members of the public safety ranks in Columbus within 10 years.
Ginther said the goal is having a plan in place before Ginther is required by city charter to present a budget to City Council in November.
“You cannot police beyond what the community understands, what the community accepts and what the community is willing to participate in,” Clark said. bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner