Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein said she is pleased with the pool of candidates and hopes to appoint a new police chief next month.
“As we begin the final phase of this process, we are confident we will find a strong leader for the Dayton Police Department who understands and appreciates the value of community engagement in policing,” Dickstein said last week.
Four men are vying to become Dayton’s 27th police chief, replacing Chief Richard Biehl, who retired this past summer after leading the department for 13 years.
The city told the Dayton Daily News that 30 people expressed interest in the position by the deadline.
Dayton’s shortlist of candidates includes Dayton police Interim Chief Matt Carper; Hopewell (Virginia) police Chief Kamran Afzal; John Pate, the chief administrative officer and public safety director for Opa-locka, Florida; and Joseph Sullivan, the former deputy commissioner of patrol operations for the Philadelphia Police Department.
A potential fifth finalist is being vetted by an outside consultant the city hired to handle recruitment and screening.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
The candidates have diverse backgrounds and professional experience.
Carper, Afzal and Sullivan are in their 50s, while Pate is 37.
Pate is Black, while Afzal was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager. Carper and Sullivan are white.
Sullivan was second in command of the fourth largest police department in the nation, which has more than 4,600 sworn and civilian personnel.
Pate is the city manager of a municipality with about 16,000 residents and 54 sworn police personnel. Pate also once served as the deputy director of the Cook County (Illinois) Sheriff’s Office, which has more than 500 officers.
Cook County, home to Chicago, is the second most populous county in the nation.
Afzal is the chief of police of a city with less than 23,000 residents and about 68 sworn officers. Afzal also worked for the Arlington County (Virginia) Police Department for more than two decades — an agency with about 350 sworn officers.
Dayton has 360 sworn officers and 137,600 residents.
Carper, who was appointed interim police chief in July, has worked for the Dayton Police Department for 29 years.
A couple of the finalists also made it onto the shortlists of other communities hunting for new law enforcement leadership.
Sullivan was a candidate for Philadelphia’s police commission job, but an outside candidate was hired and he decided to retire shortly after that, in early 2020.
Earlier this year, Sullivan was a finalist for police chief job openings in Columbus; Akron; Memphis, Tennessee; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Those cities ended up selecting other candidates.
If selected to be Dayton’s next chief, Sullivan vowed to be accessible, listen to community members’ concerns, learn their priorities and solicit their input and advice.
Last year, Pate, 37, was a finalist for the police chief post with the Milwaukee Police Department, but another candidate was picked.
Pate says he’s in the running for a chief administrator position with the civilian office of professional accountability for the Chicago Police Department. Pate said he is thrilled about the job opportunity in Dayton.
“If provided the opportunity, I am committed to the success of the city in every way possible,” he said.
Afzal said currently he isn’t a finalist for any other police leadership jobs, and Carper says he hasn’t applied for leadership positions with other departments.
Afzal told this newspaper he has been impressed with the city’s recruitment and selection process.
“The company that Dayton has hired took time to make sure I understood, as much as possible, the community itself,” Afzal said. “I appreciated the insight both professionally and personally since I would be making Dayton my home if I were to be fortunate enough to be selected to lead the police department and serve Dayton.”
Carper told this newspaper, “I look forward to the competitive selection process as well as the continued work ahead with our dedicated community members and the courageous men and women who sacrifice so much to make our community safer.”
Derrick Foward, president of the Dayton Unit NAACP, said he was pleased to see two people of color make the cut, but he wishes a woman also was in the running.
Foward also said he was glad to find out that Dickstein reached out to former City Manager Rashad Young to learn about the format the city used the last time it searched for a new police chief.
The process the city used to hire Biehl had robust community engagement, Foward said, adding that he hopes the city’ hires a chief who is honest with the community and makes a firm commitment to police accountability and reforms.
The Dayton Daily News reached out to more than a dozen people who have been involved in the recruitment process or who likely will be involved in the next phases of screening and interviews.
Community members who responded by deadline declined to comment on the record, saying they will not make any public remarks until the vetting process is complete.
Dickstein said community members who are participating in the police chief interviews were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements.
“We need a process that is an objective evaluation of the candidates’ strengths,” she said.
The next phase of the selection process will include lengthy interviews with candidates, which will be held between Friday, Oct. 8, to Monday, Oct. 11, Dickstein said.
More than 50 people representing neighborhood organizations, community groups, businesses and police reform committee members will take part in the interview panels, Dickstein said.
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