Seattle City Council approves Carmen Best as SPD chief
Aug 13, 2018, 2:55 PM | Updated: 2:59 pm
Carmen Best. (Seattle Police Department, Facebook)
(Seattle Police Department, Facebook)
The Seattle City Council unanimously approved Carmen Best as chief of police on Monday.
Carmen Best: Police prefer to be waved at with all fingers
Best has been running SPD ever since Chief Kathleen O’Toole resigned in late 2016. She has worked with the Seattle Police Department for 25 years, acting as a media relations officer, narcotics lieutenant, precinct captain, and more. She has been deputy chief since 2014 and has become well-known in the community.
“I’m a hometown girl,” Best told KIRO Radio in July. “I shop downtown. I do my running at Green Lake. I go to the 5th Avenue Theater. I love the Mariners, I love the Seahawks. My daughter works at Amazon, my husband works at Boeing. This is our home. This is where I was raised. I’m really connected to this community.”
But the road to the chief of police job was bumpy. Best was among five finalists for chief, selected by a 25-member search committee and forwarded to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office. There was a sentiment at the city, however, that someone from outside the department would make necessary changes. The mayor’s office further whittled the list down to three, knocking Best out of consideration. This was greeted with ire by a large number of Seattleites wishing to see the longtime Seattle officer as chief.
But in July, one of the top three candidates dropped out of the running — Former Pittsburgh police chief Cameron McLay. Durkan placed Best back into the mix.
In a conversation with KIRO Radio, Best focused on SPD staffing levels as a top priority for the city.
I’m certainly hoping to increase our staffing levels to more people coming into the organization. That is some of the things that a contract will help with because we need to make sure our compensation is fair and comparable to other organizations here. We want to make sure we are doing targeted recruiting when bringing people in. And letting them know that policing is not just car chases and gun fights. It really is about service. There’s a number of folks out there who want to engage in public service. This is an opportunity to do that and we need to get that message out there.
Listen to Carmen Best’s conversation about what she brings to the Seattle Police Department below.
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