Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay tells department he won’t be headed to Texas
Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay will not be taking over the troubled Austin Police Department in Texas, city officials said Wednesday.
Mayor Brandon Whipple said he was informed by City Manager Robert Layton that Ramsay will be staying in his current job for the foreseeable future.
Whipple said he was delighted by the news and that Ramsay’s community policing initiatives have “really brought us closer to the goals of what other cities are trying to do as well. Chief Ramsay has done a really good job of setting that standard.”
Ramsay emailed the department Wednesday that he was no longer in the running for the Austin position, saying he’s “forever grateful for the support and kind words of those of you who reached out. It means a lot.”
“This process confirmed to me WPD (Wichita Police Department) is way ahead of others in many, many ways - due to the efforts of many of you,” he wrote. “While of course it is disappointing, I have way too much to be grateful for to give the news much energy.“
Ramsay couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Ramsay was chosen as one of seven finalists for the job and Austin city manager Spencer Cronk planned to announce the next chief by the end of August, according to a July 26 news release by the City of Austin.
No one from Austin city government immediately returned calls from The Eagle.
Austin, at a population of 950,000, is more than twice the size of Wichita.
The job there opened in February, when Police Chief Brian Manley announced his retirement. Manley was dogged by protests over the department’s fatal shooting of an unarmed man last year and faced withering criticism for the department’s use of force during protests sparked by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
Austin, the state capital, home of the University of Texas and a liberal enclave in a largely conservative state, was the site of mammoth protests after the Floyd killing.
At least two of the protesters, ages 16 and 20, were hospitalized with head trauma after being struck by “less lethal” munitions fired by crowd-control officers.
Ramsay has been a leading and outspoken critic of the police action that resulted in Floyd’s death.
Floyd, an African American man, died after a white officer knelt on his neck for over nine minutes, despite his pleas that he couldn’t breathe and horrified bystanders who recorded the incident and pleaded with the officer to let up.
The seven finalists in Austin include four women and three men. Four of the candidates are Black.
Ramsay came to Wichita in 2016 from Duluth, Minnesota, and was a former president of the Minnesota Police Chiefs Association. Cronk used to be the city administrator in Minneapolis, which is a little over two hours from Duluth.
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 5:46 PM.
