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St. Louis Personnel Division changes qualifications for city's next chief

Candidates to become the city's next chief must hold the rank of lieutenant or above for at least five years

ST. LOUIS — The pool of candidates to become St. Louis’ next police chief just got deeper.

The Personnel Division posted a job description for the city’s next top cop on June 21, setting the deadline to apply on July 31.

It reads, in part, “Applicants must currently have at least 10 years of increasingly responsible professional policing experience, including five years of patrol operations, administrative, or investigative responsibility at the rank of Police Commander or higher. OR an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.”

In St. Louis, commanders are usually lieutenants, captains, majors and colonels.

Traditionally, the department has required applicants to have held the rank of captain or above for at least 10 years. During last year’s search for Chief John Hayden’s replacement, there were only four internal candidates who met that criteria.

The city's police department has 52 lieutenants, seven captains, four majors and two lieutenant colonels. How many of those commanders are eligible to apply is unclear. Years of service is an open record, but how long a commander has held any certain rank is a closed record, according to department spokesman Sgt. Charles Wall.

Interim Chief Michael Sack is expected to apply for the permanent job as he was one of the two finalists in the fall. 

Interim Personnel Director John Moten sent a statement about his decision to change the criteria, which read: "I feel the change is a better representation and description of candidates that may be qualified for the commissioner position."

He told the I-Team Tuesday he did not know off-hand how many internal and external candidates have applied so far.

St. Louis Police Officers Association President Jay Schroeder said he was happy to see the police chief search moving ahead.

"It's nice to know we should soon find out who is going to be our next chief of police, but do we really have to dig down that far into the ranks to find a qualified candidate?" he said.

The decisions to re-open the search and change the criteria come after a national search for Hayden’s replacement last year left two white men, Lt. Col. Lawrence O’Toole and Lt. Col. Michael Sack, as finalists for the job.

Mayor Tishaura Jones was critical of the process, saying it wasn’t transparent.

In St. Louis, the personnel director determines the qualifications for police chief and conducts the search. The Personnel Director is appointed by a mayor, but does not serve at the pleasure of any mayor to prevent patronage.

Long-time Personnel Director Richard Frank stepped down last year, and Jones appointed Moten as the Interim Director in his place.

The process Frank oversaw resulted in six finalists, which were sent to the mayor’s office for consideration. Four of those candidates were external candidates, who did not show up for the test, leaving only the two internal candidates, O’Toole and Sack, from which to pick.

“I only had two white male candidates to choose from and St. Louis is more diverse than white males, our police department is more diverse—there were a lot of diverse candidates within the police department who were kicked out of the first round so I want to start over to find the right candidate,” Jones told The St. Louis American.

The city recently settled a discrimination lawsuit with O’Toole, which included O’Toole’s retirement last month.

Jones appointed Sack as the Interim Chief in May.  

The job posting also requires candidates to have a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major course work in Criminal Justice, Police Science, Public or Business Administration, or a closely related field.

The deadline to apply is July 31.

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