Modesto has four candidates for police chief, including department’s interim leader
Modesto has narrowed its search for its next police chief to four candidates, including its current interim chief. The other candidates include one from a department that polices one of the 25 largest cities in the United States.
Modesto received 14 applicants after its executive search consultant held a nationwide recruitment from May 6 to June 21. The four candidates were selected among the applicants.
Deputy City Manager Caluha Barnes said in an email the four are candidates and not finalists and are “simply moving to the next phase” in the recruitment. Citing privacy concerns, she declined to name the candidates or their agencies.
But interim Police Chief Brandon Gillespie confirmed by text Friday that he is one of the candidates. He said he does not know who the others are. He has been interim chief since the December retirement of Galen Carroll, who retired after serving as chief for nearly eight years.
Gillespie has worked for the Modesto Police Department for nearly 20 years, starting as an officer and working his way up. He has been assistant chief since October 2019. The department has a $72.4 million budget and is budgeted 298 employees, with about two thirds of them sworn officers.
More details soon on hiring process
Barnes said in an email the next steps will be for the city manager’s office to review the candidates and the recommendations from Ralph Andersen & Associates, the city’s executive search consultant, and consider how to again engage the “community stakeholders from whom we’ve already received 373 survey responses that were used in the development of the recruitment brochure and interview questions.”
Modesto provided an online survey in English and Spanish to gather community input on filling the job of police chief. Barnes said the city could not yet share the survey results because they still are with Ralph Andersen & Associates. A city official has said Modesto is paying the firm $42,000.
Barnes said Modesto could not provide more details on the process of filling the position, including whether there will be forums for the public to meet the finalists, or when City Manager Joe Lopez will name a new chief. But she said Thursday city officials should have more information this coming week on the next steps and the process.
When asked whether 14 people applying for the position met the city’s expectations, Barnes said in an email that “each recruitment is different, and the national conversation about police reform is impacting recruitment of law enforcement personnel at every level. The police chief position is no different, as is evident by the number of police chief recruitments open nationally.”
But she said in an email that the four candidates are highly qualified and “are ethnically diverse, have varied professional experience and come from a diversity of communities.”
Two applicants from big cities
She said the 14 applicants for the position have 14 to 37 years of experience and come from cities that range in population from 76,000 to 1.5 million. Two of the applicants are from cities that rank in the top 25 in the United States in population, but only one of them is among the four candidates.
Law enforcement agencies across the nation have come under scrutiny since the May 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, was sentenced Friday to 22 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of murder.
That scrutiny was heightened here after the December fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a Modesto officer. The officer, Joseph Lamantia, was fired from his job and charged with voluntary manslaughter in March. He has pleaded not guilty.
Lamantia shot Trevor Seever. The 29-year-old’s family members and their supporters as well as activists and others have held protests since his death. And they have spoken during public comment at City Council meetings requesting, and in some instances demanding, the city hire an independent auditor and form a civilian review board to provide oversight of the Police Department.
Committee will look at reforms
Mayor Sue Zwahlen and the City Council have launched Forward Together, an effort to have a conversation with the community regarding the Police Department. Gillespie, the interim chief, supports this.
The initiative includes a committee that will spend six months to a year looking at potential ways to improve policing before bringing recommendations to the council. The committee is expected to hold its first meeting July 20.
There has been some push back to the calls for reform. Some residents have spoken during public comment at council meetings to express their full support of the Police Department. And at Tuesday’s council meeting, members of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, denounced Forward Together. Some audience members held signs in support of Lamantia, including “Justice for Joe,” and “We love Joe.”
Besides the debate over how officers police Modesto, the city for years has struggled to fund its police and fire departments. That is because the taxes and other revenues that support public safety have not kept pace with the salaries and benefits. Modesto, like many California cities, also is facing steeply rising pension costs for all of its employees.
This story was originally published June 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
