City leaders want next police chief to bring stability and staying power to Columbus Police Department
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Columbus Mayor Keith Gaskin says the city has received over 20 applications so far for the city’s open position of chief of police.
The mayor says they published the job opening Friday, just a few days after finalizing the 10-person search committee in charge of finding the best possible candidate.
Mayor Gaskin says he believes there is major interest in the job. But numbers have not been Columbus’s problem when it comes to police chief. It’s getting one to stick.
Since 1997, eight different people have held the title.
“It’s a big decision,” Mayor Gaskin says. “It’s one of the most important decisions that we will make in the city of Columbus.”
To get the carousel to stop, members of the search committee say their top priorities are experience and longevity when selecting a candidate.
“We’re very excited about the diversity of our search committee for the new police chief,” the mayor says. “Not only do we have obviously elected city officials, we’ve selected people who have unique knowledge about what it takes to be a successful police chief in the 21st century.”
The committee includes the mayor, Councilmen Joseph Mickens, Stephen Jones, and Rusty Green, Chief Operating Officer Jammie Garrett, Human Resources Director Pat Mitchell, District Attorney Scott Colom, Public Defender Amanda Meadows, Rita Felton of the Columbus Air Force Base, and former Columbus Police Chief Pete Bowen.
“A police chief has to remember that he’s the face of the department to the public,” says Bowen, who served as chief from 1990 to 1997. “And so he’s going to have a lot to do to come in and fix what’s wrong right now.”
The two largest issues facing the department are low pay and low morale.
“You hire an officer and send them to the academy and bring him back, he’s ready to hit the streets,” Bowen says. “If you’re not paying him like the other cities around, then he’s going to look for somewhere else to go.”
Over the last 10 years, Columbus has had four different police chiefs. Together, they lasted an average of just over 2 years on the job. Of those four, Chief Fred Shelton’s tenure was the longest, running from 2018 to 2022.
“We want to reverse that,” Mayor Gaskin says. “We want to try to find somebody that we feel like will come in and be here and have a passion for the city and the citizens.”
In order to attract the best candidate possible, the mayor says the city is also working on ways to support the next chief once they take over.
“We’ve been budgeted for up to 70 officers,” Mayor Gaskin says. “We’re looking at, can we budget for say 55 (officers) and be able to increase salaries for the officers that we have and those that we will attract in?”
That also includes upgrading the department’s equipment through grants and other programs.
“The radios at the police department have been an issue for quite some time,” the mayor says. “The number of vehicles that we have for officers has been an issue for quite some time.”
Bowen says the most important thing the next chief must do is earn the respect of the CPD officers and the citizens they protect.
“Get some of their opinions on what’s going on and what has gone on,” he says. “Listen to what they’ve got to say because they’ve been here and try to work from there.”
Bowen also says that a good way to keep the next chief around for the long run is to give them the freedom to do their job.
“(The mayor and city council should) support him and the decisions he makes and let him run the department,” Bowen says. “As long as they can run it and do it right, let him do it and stay out of his business.”
The mayor says they will continue accepting applications over the next 30 days before they begin the interview process.
Bowen says the goal is to present four to five finalists to the city council. Mayor Gaskin says he would like to select the new chief before the end of the year.
