Background breakdown underway on MPD Director finalists
Background breakdown on 7 MPD Director finalists By Janice Broach | March 11, 2021 at 10:23 PM CST - Updated March 11 at 10:23 PM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - After a search conducted by the International Chiefs of Police the same group that led the search in 2016, here are the 7 finalists.
Joel Fitzgerald, who has served as police chief in several cities. According to our NBC affiliates in Texas and California Joel Fitzgerald was fired from his job in Fort Worth, Texas in 2019, but has since won an appeal to be honorably discharged. He is currently working in Waterloo, Iowa.
7 candidates under consideration for MPD director
7 candidates under consideration for MPD Director By Arianna Poindexter | March 11, 2021 at 5:50 PM CST - Updated March 11 at 5:50 PM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The search for the next Memphis Police Director is heating up as the City of Memphis released the names of seven finalists in a nationwide search.
The search is being conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), which was the same group that led the search in 2016.
Finalists include three internal candidates with the Memphis Police Department and include Deputy Chief Sharonda Hampton, Deputy Chief Samuel Hines and Deputy Chief Michael Shearin.
City of Memphis releases list of finalists for new police director
City of Memphis names finalists for MPD director By WMC Action News 5 Staff | March 11, 2021 at 10:54 AM CST - Updated March 11 at 1:01 PM
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The City of Memphis released a list of finalists to succeed Mike Rallings as director of the Memphis Police Department.
Rallings is set to retire April 14.
The city leaned on the International Association of Chiefs of Police to find candidates. Interviews will occur in the coming weeks, and a decision is expected next month.
See the list of finalists below:
Joel Fitzgerald
Chief Joel Fitzgerald has served in various ranks with the Philadelphia Police Department and was selected as Chief of Police in Missouri City, TX. He then became Chief of Police in Allentown, PA, and for four years served as Chief of Police in Fort Worth, TX. In 2020, he joined the City of Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office as Chief Deputy and is now Chief of Police in Waterloo,
Specifically, the trio want Ginther to do more to change what they describe as a culture of racism in the police division and to speak more with people like themselves, who they say have different points of view than he does. The mayor has no idea how traumatized African American males including those of us who are pastors how we are victims of post-traumatic stress disorder every time we come in contact, seeing a police car or seeing the (cruiser) lights, Kee said. We re talking about how psychologically how messed up we are as Black men because we are on the edge.
Columbus clergy members want former police Chief Thomas Quinlan out of the department entirely, but Mayor Andrew Ginther isn t budging.
A small but outspoken group of faith leaders delivered a petition to Ginther s office at City Hall on Monday morning with more than 300 signatures on it.
The petition calls for Quinlan not just to be demoted from chief to deputy chief, as he was Thursday, but to be removed from the department as a whole. For him to step down to deputy chief is an egregious insult to our integrity, said the Bishop Donald Washington, senior pastor at Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church on the Northeast Side, during a press conference before faith leaders delivered the petition. He needs to go. He needs to go now because a leopard never changes its spots.