The search for Cincinnati’s next police chief, the first to include candidates from outside the department, has attracted 37 candidates from 19 states, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. Five internal applicants and 32 from as near as Covington, Ky., and as far as Washington state met Friday’s deadline in hopes of succeeding former Police Chief Tom Streicher.
Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Resource Forum said the number of applications in a city for an department with 1,300 employees and a $106 million budget is what he would expect. Wexler suggests not basing the choice on the size of an applicant’s current department. “Some of the most interesting recent innovations in policing have occurred in medium-sized departments,” Wexler said. Bernard Melekian, now directing the federal community policing program, got attention for the antiviolence program No More Dead Children in Pasadena, Ca.