SEATTLE — Three candidates are moving forward in the search for Seattle's next police chief: Interim Seattle Chief of Police Adrian Diaz, Seattle Assistant Chief of Police Eric Greening and Tucson Assistant Chief of Police Kevin Hall.
Seattle has been without a permanent chief of police since Carmen Best stepped down from the position after the Seattle City Council voted to cut spending to the police department in August 2020.
Diaz has been serving as interim chief ever since.
Diaz has worked for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) for over two decades. He worked in patrol, the mountain bike unit and the anti-crime team before joining the investigations bureau. He also served as assistant chief of the Collaborative Policing Bureau before he was promoted to deputy chief.
Greening has been with SPD for 28 years and has served as the assistant chief of the collaborative policing bureau since 2021. Before that, Greening was a patrol officer, field training officer, DUI traffic enforcement officer, patrol sergeant, east anti-crime team sergeant, narcotics unit detective sergeant, a patrol watch lieutenant in the south, east and west precincts, a force review board member, a lieutenant officer of police accountability and operations lieutenant in the east and south precincts. He was promoted to Assistant Chief in 2017.
Hall has been with the Tucson Police Department for over three decades. He served as a patrol officer, detective patrol sergeant, SWAT sergeant, investigative sergeant, patrol lieutenant. field services bureau executive officer, and patrol captain. As assistant chief, he developed and implemented a comprehensive pre-arrest deflection program in Tucson, Arizona in 2018, which included peer support specialist co-responders embedded in the police department, active outreach, self-referral and harm-reduction practices.
The search for Seattle's next police chief began in April. An independent third-party firm assisted in identifying candidates "nationwide" for the position.
A search committee convened by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell then determined which candidates would proceed to the next phase of the process. Community engagement and feedback was taken into account during the search process.
Fifteen candidates applied to the job. On Sept. 6 and 7, a select number participated in a competitive examination by four public safety experts. The three finalists were then chosen from that group.
"Our search committee and assessors have advanced candidates with our community’s expectations at the forefront – accountability, community-centered leadership, and innovation. I look forward to meeting with and evaluating these candidates,” Harrell said in a statement.
The Seattle City Charter requires the mayor to select the chief of police from three finalists. The chosen candidate must also be confirmed by the city council.
The candidates will undergo a series of stakeholder interviews that will culminate in a candidate question and answer session on Sept. 15. Community members can submit questions for the candidates to address online.
Seattle's new police chief will be charged with addressing ongoing staffing challenges in the department. The number of deployable officers sits at 954, which is the lowest number in over 30 years. Officers are still leaving more quickly than the department can hire them, data shows. The department has lost 400 officers over the past two years.