The Wrong Way to Hire a Police Chief

Ann Arbor wants a police chief focused on mental illness, community trust and implicit bias – not rising crime.

Aug 23, 2023

Ann Arbor, Michigan is a desirable university town west of Detroit and southeast of Lansing. With a population of about 122,000, it is a community with a thriving downtown and hot rental housing market. I haven’t been there in decades, but I’ve read it has the many positive redevelopment projects that have happened in other cities.

Hiring a police chief

The city appeared on my radar about a month ago while writing Quit Banning Traffic Stops as they were proposing the same ban on enforcement of minor traffic violations as fellow college towns Lansing, Michigan and Berkeley, California. I discovered that they are in the process of hiring a new police chief, with very specific aims and goals. Besides being the leader of 151 police employees with a $31,000,000 budget, I have not found any law-enforcing, crime stopping, or case solving leadership criteria in their selection process for the new police chief. The focus was on “…covered topics like mental health, transparency, accountability and implicit bias. The police department’s relationship with the community was an ongoing theme throughout all four interviews, with special emphasis on transparency and connection with all community members.”

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These hiring priorities are not in line with the current situation in the city. One would think that mental health would at least share the spotlight with crime and case resolution. Does Ann Arbor have a crime problem?

Yes! In 2020, the violent crime rate was above the national average of 395.7/100,000 at 411.3/100,000. While it is lower than the Michigan state average 478/100,000, that level of crime is nothing to be proud of in a suburban college town. In fact, 28 states have lower overall violent crime rates, including Florida, Georgia and New York.

Crime is serious, and rising

Violent crime has become a topic during the summer of 2023: “The uptick in gun violence is a troubling development,”said Ann Arbor Police Department Deputy Chief Jason Forsberg. “What’s of most concern to us right now is the injuries related to the weapons that are being used,” he said. Aggravated assault in downtown Ann Arbor has seen the biggest rise since 39 were reported in 2018. The height of the pandemic in 2020 saw 43 of these assaults, followed by 48 the next year and 67 the year after that. Through May, there have been 26 aggravated assaults reported, which extrapolated out for the rest of the year nearly equals the 2022 totals.

Implicit bias is a big lie

The verdict on implicit bias has been delivered for some time. If you had a process for determining an outcome or diagnosing an ailment that had a 60-90% failure rate, could you ever trust the results? If there was a medical test that unreliable, would you advise planning based on your prognosis?

Scientific process depends on whether results can be replicated, the test of a hypothesis, and implicit bias fails hard. It also fails the logic test. Is it reasonable to believe that people are governed by, driven by this unconscious program within ourselves that we can’t control, while at the same time making conscious choices, governed by our conscious motives and desires? Fortunately implicit bias is not real or we could never convict anyone of any crime ever.

Community trust

There was an emphasis on the candidates’ abilities connecting with all community members and acquiring the elusive community trust. Chief Nathaniel Clark, one of the applicants used the analogy that community trust was like a piggy bank where trust is deposited until the day it is necessary to make a withdrawal. I was there on the day we needed to cash it in, and the check came back NSF.

As much as the law enforcement community would like to grasp that intangible by doing unwise acts like mowing lawns in uniform, cooking breakfast, mobbing a coffee shop, and playing basketball in full gear, the only way that trust and respect will be lasting will be by first accomplishing the mission of addressing crime by holding offenders accountable and protecting the innocent.

A better idea

The City of Ann Arbor is already committed to transparency with dashboards and near-real-time crime mapping. The citizens would benefit from a true leader who promises double digit crime reduction, high clearance rates and a commitment to her or his officers where they know the police chief will have their back. Ann Arbor deserves a courageous leader who reviews every complaint before it goes to internal affairs. A chief who decides whether the release of body camera footage will compromise a criminal case. A leader who tells city hall that before they accuse an officer of latent unconscious bias, they can come through her or his badge.

That should be an everyone wins scenario.

Please keep all our nation’s officers in your prayers.