A look at issues behind whether to go outside for Wichita police chief

When Wichita City Manager Robert Layton announced Monday that he is beginning a new search for a police chief, he said he likely will look for an outsider.

Which raises a question: Why the need for an outsider?

Layton said he came to his conclusion to focus outside because of a surprising “commonality” in feedback from Police Department staff and the community. The common sentiment, he said, is that people want “fresh eyes” and a new and different perspective. The new job listing offers a salary of $91,146 to $176,024, depending on experience. It doesn’t limit applicants to outsiders.

Layton announced at City Hall that he was starting over in the search because one finalist, Joel Fitzgerald, an outsider from Pennsylvania, had rejected his offer. Fitzgerald has since accepted the chief’s job in Fort Worth. The other finalist, Terri Moses, didn’t have the right “skill set,” Layton said, noting that she had spent most of her career in the Wichita Police Department and that he is now focused on getting someone from outside the agency.

Some took Layton’s apparent preference for an outsider as an insult – a message that potential internal candidates shouldn’t apply, according to multiple sources.

Layton said Friday: “That perception doesn’t make sense to me because my bias is for an internal promotion whenever possible.” Layton also noted that feedback calling for an outside candidate came from people in the department.

Mayor Jeff Longwell said he isn’t convinced that going outside the department is the only path to take. He said Friday that he welcomed anyone from inside the department “or anyone who’s been inside the department within the last 10 years to apply. … We want the most well-rounded individual we can get.”

“I’m a friend of Terri Moses,” Longwell said, adding that he didn’t try to “strong-arm” Layton into picking Moses. In the initial process, “I told Terri, ‘Please apply for the job because your skill set is perfect.’ I still believe that Terri Moses is not only a fine person and very capable person to be a chief of police. But again, it is not my decision to make.”

Paul Zamorano, president of the police union, said the Fraternal Order of Police wants an outsider. “The majority of the bargaining unit wants an outside perspective, a fresh set of eyes and ears, someone with no ties to the department.” Asked why, he said, “It’s time for a new perspective, fresh ideas.”

How discontent surfaced

Layton’s focus outside raises another question: On a deeper level, why do people want to go outside the department?

Getting an answer from cops willing to use their names is next to impossible because, like the military, they work under a chain of command where soldiers don’t comment publicly and commanders keep any differences private.

But according to multiple people who work for the department or closely watch it, the idea of looking outside is a reaction to issues that surfaced about a year ago when Police Chief Norman Williams announced that he was retiring after 14 years in the job. Williams was a career-long insider in a department that hasn’t had an outsider in 26 years.

Three weeks after his retirement last September, The Eagle reported that Williams was on a so-called Brady-Giglio list of police who could have credibility issues if they were called to testify in criminal cases. The Eagle deduced through open-records requests that Williams was on the list for filing a false report, a violation that now results in a firing. Later Williams explained that he was on the list because of a mistake he made 33 years ago when he was an officer on the street.

“I did not complete my officer’s daily activity report completely and accurately,” Williams said. He said he also didn’t note his tickets, arrests and cases in a separate lieutenant’s log book. “I’d been warned about it before.”

Still, he said, what happened in 1981 shouldn’t define his career. During his tenure as chief, the department won national community policing awards, reduced gang crimes through a systematic effort and solved the biggest mystery of all – the BTK serial murders.

Williams said Thursday he didn’t want to make further comment on the Brady-Giglio matter.

The fact that the police chief of the largest law enforcement agency in the state was on the Brady-Giglio list stunned some. Critics of the department said it was more proof that the department has a credibility problem and a reputation for secrecy.

The list derives from case law requiring prosecutors to disclose information that might be used to challenge the credibility of witnesses during a trial. The disclosure could include past conduct by officers involved in an investigation, such as convictions and official findings of dishonesty.

According to sources, there was a perception of unequal treatment – that Williams and other top staff had been able to rise through the ranks after they got into trouble while others’ careers were forever damaged by relatively minor Brady-Giglio infractions.

Discontent linked

About the same time that the Brady-Giglio issue arose, rumors began to spread that some top staff had been accused of domestic violence, and that the cases had been covered up. At the same time, lower-ranking officers were getting booked into jail and prosecuted in similar situations.

And about the same time, the department was dealing with criticism about shootings by officers and a distrust of the department’s ability to honestly investigate itself. In the past year, lawsuits against the department over officer shootings have been piling up. As recently as Sept. 16, the wife of a reportedly suicidal man who survived being shot 16 times by Wichita police sued the city and five officers for $5 million. The lawsuit blames the shooting for the man’s eventual suicide and contends that “Current and past leadership at the City implemented a pattern and practice of concealing and covering up misconduct by its officers and leadership.”

Layton recently asked the city attorney to review whether a restricted-access file used by police, referred to by many as the “confidential file,” has been used inappropriately, specifically whether its use had been broadened beyond what it was originally intended to hold. The file was created years ago to protect sensitive criminal investigations, including murders and sex crimes, so that people in the Police Department not involved in the investigation would not have access to case information and photographs, Layton said. The cases in the file include homicides; sex crimes, including those with child victims; suicides; and domestic violence cases against city employees, City Attorney Jennifer Magana said.

After Williams’ retirement, Deputy Chief Nelson Mosley was promoted to interim police chief. Mosley spoke publicly about the department’s desire for transparency and its commitment to equip officers with body cameras.

Still, sources say, bitterness within the department and criticism from outside continued to fester this past August as Layton announced that Moses and Fitzgerald were finalists.

“For some members in our community ... perception of corruption has become their reality,” Council Member Janet Miller said. “I do not ignore that perception.” Still, Miller said, “I’m not comfortable acknowledging it as a reality.” The department is “loaded with very good, intelligent, dedicated” people, she said. Any decision to look outside the department “is not because we have bad actors or corruption within the department.”

How Round 1 played out

Moses had spent 32 years with the Police Department. She was its first female deputy chief and spent 18 years just below police chief, and over that time, she managed every division in the department. She left two years ago to become executive director of safety services for the Wichita school district.

At an Aug. 31 public forum, Moses suffered a barrage of criticism from representatives of community groups representing minorities, who implied that she was tainted because she had been a long-time commander in a department accused of covering up problems.

During the onslaught of questions from the audience, she also made a comment that offended some Hispanics. Moses tried to explain herself, and she apologized. Her supporters said privately that she had been treated unfairly at the forum.

At the same forum, Fitzgerald, the 44-year-old police chief in Allentown, Pa., received enthusiastic applause. To his supporters, he said the right things: He would bring “fresh eyes and ears.” He had no ties to anyone in Wichita. And he cited the “seven deadly words: ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it.’” As an African-American, he said, he understood the issue of racial profiling. If the audience read his resume, they would have seen that he started the first, active, body camera program in Pennsylvania.

Behind the scenes, the outsider from Pennsylvania seemed to solidify himself as the favorite of people inside the department and in the community, including some of the department’s harshest critics.

Observers thought that, especially after the forum, Layton would do everything to land the rising star. Soon, though, Fitzgerald was being courted for the chief’s job in Fort Worth, and Layton would lose in his first attempt at hiring an outsider.

The new search goes on. The deadline for a new batch of resumes is Oct. 30.

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 5:22 PM with the headline "A look at issues behind whether to go outside for Wichita police chief."