The president of the union representing Seattle police officers said it is "insulting" that Interim Police Chief Carmen Best is not a finalist for the permanent job because she was not an outside candidate.
In a statement released Tuesday, Officer Kevin Stuckey, president of the Seattle Police Officer's Guild, says the guild is "extremely disappointed and angered" by some comments made during the announcement of three finalists last week. None of them are currently with the department.
Stuckey released a statement saying, "Former Mayor Tim Burgess, speaking as a co-chair of the Chief’s Selection Committee, downplayed all of the accomplishments and reforms that have been achieved by the men and women of the Seattle Police Department over the past five years and commented that an 'outsider' was needed for the top job to 'change the culture of the department.'"
The finalists are Eddie Frizell, Minneapolis Police Department inspector; Cameron S. McLay, former Pittsburgh Police Chief; and Ely Reyes, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department.
In announcing the finalists last week, Burgess said there was a lot of consideration about whether the candidate should come from inside or outside the department.
"While the police department has made tremendous progress in reform, there is still a lot of work yet to do, including some of the foundational cultural reform that has yet to take root, and we felt that it was best at this point for an outsider to come in as chief of police,” Burgess said.
Stuckey said in his letter that Best was the second-highest ranking member of the Seattle Police Department as the department reached compliance with reforms set forth by the Department of Justice and that she provided the leadership needed to change the culture.
"For Former Mayor Burgess to downplay this achievement is an insult to each and every member of the department who has achieved so much in such a short amount of time," Stuckey continued.
A source close to the search says Best was one of five finalists and scored the lowest of any of those final candidates. Best took over as chief following the departure of Kathleen O'Toole, who held the position since June 2014.
Stuckey said he hopes Mayor Jenny Durkan will do a thorough review of the selection process "and ensure that an obvious bias against an extremely qualified internal candidate will not be tolerated."
While at the groundbreaking for the Lander Street overpass project Tuesday, Durkan was asked why Best was not added as a finalist.
"With all due respect, the person who has the most say in that is Carmen Best and Carmen Best has said to me she is ready to move on. She respects the process. She is disappointed but she respects the process," Durkan said.
In a memo to Durkan dated last Friday, the search committee found serious long-running issues in the department, hinting at a need for an outside perspective.
"SPD faces significant resource deployment challenges. Less than half of all sworn officers are assigned to patrol, a percentage that is inconsistent with a national practice of 60 percent or more of sworn officers being assigned to patrol," the group wrote. "SPD uses a community policing model that assigns specific officers to this work, segregating them from the main patrol force, thereby signaling others that they are not responsible. This is a serious error and prevents adoption of a community policing culture across the entire Police Department."
The memo also said, "SPD lacks supervisor accountability standards and capabilities... SPD officers and detectives produce an inconsistent work product in terms of thoroughness and accuracy."
Enrique Gonzalez, with the Community Police Commission, stood beside several members of the police chief selection committee and spoke out against the process on Tuesday.
"We were all selected by the Mayor and we were put forward to do a process that has now turned into a secretive process, one that we can not support," said Gonzalez.
Durkan will interview each candidate in the coming weeks, and the candidate she nominates will be confirmed by Seattle City Council.
There is some precedent for the Mayor to ignore the recommendations of a search committee. Then-Mayor Norm Rice did it in 1994, when he selected Norm Stamper, despite his committee’s choices.
