Fort Worth needs a new police chief, again. Here’s what City Hall is looking for
Fort Worth is likely to have a new police chief by March, and though the city plans an extensive nationwide search, officials seem hopeful they’ll find a candidate similar in disposition to Chief Ed Kraus.
Kraus announced in July that he wanted to retire by the end of the year. The 28-year veteran of the department took over as chief in May 2019 after Joel Fitzgerald was fired.
He has committed to stay with with the city until a replacement is found. Deputy City Manager Jay Chapa joked Tuesday that he could stretch the search out for years to keep Kraus on board, a sign of the broad respect Kraus has enjoyed at City Hall.
The City Council and community will likely vet finalists in January, Chapa said. While the city manager selects the chief, the council must approve the hire.
Those finalists may have a similar personality to Kraus’, Chapa said, with a “servant’s heart” and an attitude that the city and community come before the chief’s personal goals.
Kraus was selected as interim chief when City Manager David Cooke outed Fitzgerald following his confrontation in Washington, D.C., with the head of the state police union during a memorial for fallen officers. No national search was needed to replace Fitzgerald, Cooke and Chapa argued, because Kraus fit all the parameters they set for police chief and was in tune with the various communities.
Kraus, 52, was hired in 1992 and rose through the ranks. He made an annual salary of $215,000 as interim chief and $224,685 with the promotion.
He has been generally well received in his short time leading the department, but faced backlash for approving tear gas to disperse protesters on the West Seventh bridge during protests in May. The next night he gained national attention when he and Assistant Chief Julie Swearingin suddenly knelt with protesters.
“We’re definitely looking for someone who can pick the baton up and carry it forward in a big way,” Chapa said, adding that the next chief will need to be skilled enough to “make the changes in policing that everybody sees coming.”
Kraus has pushed to refocus the department on community-based programs, largely through altering how the department spends its special sales tax fund.
Though his suggestions did not go as far as some police-focused activists had hoped, Kraus committed to devoting more money to non-profits that provide social services. Next year’s budget will also provide funding for a larger crisis intervention team and a pilot program of civilian responders who will answer non-emergency calls.
These are the non-traditional ways policing is evolving across the country, Chapa said, and it will be important for the next chief to move forward with the changes Kraus began.
In an email, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said she’s looking for a “well-rounded, proactive candidate” who would follow Kraus’s footsteps and implement recommendations of an independent expert panel the city hired to study police policies.
“It would be counterproductive to hire a new Chief that would undo hard work and impede positive changes already in progress,” she said.
Chapa said the city is putting together a profile for Keller-based Strategic Government Resources to use while gathering candidates. The city expect to pay the consultants about $25,000 for the search.
Along with groups of city department heads and police command staff, Chapa said he’s reached out to community members who might have a say on what the city should look for in a police chief. The list includes people who have interacted with Kim Neal, the police monitor, business leaders, and member of the Race and Culture Task Force. Kraus will also advise in the search.
A short community survey will likely go out by the end of this week or early next, asking people about the perception of the department, he said.
“I don’t think in the past we’ve done it to this degree in terms of putting together profiles of what we want to see,” Chapa said.
The survey and panel input will shape the profile for what the city will ask consultants to look for when the search begins at the end of the month. It will likely take October and into the first week of November to gather a pool of candidates, he said. The goal is to have a group of semi-finalists by December with the numbers whittled down by the first of next year for a finalists list.
Ideally, the finalists would interview in person and with several groups of community and city leaders. With the pandemic, Chapa said the city will likely host small town halls that are live streamed.
Kraus said his replacement should be committed to Fort Worth and to community-based policing. The best candidate would be in the command staff at a similar sized department or leading a department slightly smaller than Fort Worth, he said. He speculated that there may be a few internal candidates who are waiting to see the search profile before voicing interest.
Cooke’s decision to hire Kraus without a national search was met with criticism that he acted without taking public input. Kraus said he understood the need for input, but said there are also benefits to hiring someone with decades of experience in Fort Worth neighborhoods.
“I think they’re right to do a public, national search, but they should also be wise enough to evaluate internal candidates,” he said.
Fort Worth, like cities of all sizes across the country, has faced heightened scrutiny over policing and use-of-force. Jacqueline Craig’s arrest in 2016 sparked outrage and complaints of excessive force. Skepticism returned to the police department last October when Atatiana Jefferson was shot by an officer who was later indicted for murder.
Despite challenges and calls for police reform, Fort Worth ought to be an attractive place to lead a department, Councilman Cary Moon said. Fort Worth has committed to not “defunding the police,” which could lure a chief who has grown disgruntled elsewhere, he said.
“I think we’ve created a very attractive environment for a future police chief,” Moon said.
As the city begins to vet candidates, Councilwoman Gyna Bivens said it will be important to to find someone from a comparable size city or department. The council and the community should be specific in what to look for, but should also be flexible when the candidate list is in development, she said.
“Can they handle a city the size of Fort Worth and does the résumé really reflect that?” Bivens said.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 4:26 PM.
