SEATTLE — Shon Barnes, the police chief of Madison, Wisconsin, thrown into the nationwide highlight by Monday’s college capturing there, is the highest contender for the police chief job in Seattle, sources concerned within the search have confirmed.
Barnes, 50, has been on the forefront of the response on the Considerable Life Christian Faculty in Madison, the place he has been chief since 2021, giving dimension to a profession wherein he has emphasised neighborhood and evidence-based policing. An adolescent opened fireplace on the college Monday, killing two, wounding a number of others after which taking her personal life.
Barnes’ title emerged final week as one of many high contenders to guide the Seattle Police Division. Mayor Bruce Harrell had tasked former SPD Chief Kathleen O’Toole and interim Chief Sue Rahr with discovering a brand new chief following the demotion of former Chief Adrian Diaz, an SPD veteran whose 4 years as high cop turned tormented by allegations of discrimination, retaliation, harassment and misconduct.
Diaz changed former Chief Carmen Finest, one other profession SPD veteran, who retired after coming underneath sharp criticism for her dealing with of the protests following the homicide of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer in 2020.
Harrell has made it clear that he needed a chief from exterior the division who may stabilize morale and lead the division out of the final vestiges of 12 years of federal oversight by a consent decree with the Division of Justice that has value Seattle greater than $200 million. Barnes has been a champion of neighborhood and evidence-based policing — practices on the coronary heart of SPD’s overhaul.
Barnes has written that “Community Policing should be neighborhood oriented, community focused (business and residential), problem oriented, and based on the most current empirical research available to quickly reduce crime and improve citizens’ satisfaction with police services.”
Seattle’s course of for choosing a police chief includes a committee that narrows the alternatives to 3 candidates and offers the names to the mayor, who makes a decide after which forwards that particular person’s appointment — together with the names of the 2 different candidates — to the Metropolis Council, which should approve the choice.
On this case, it was a committee of two — O’Toole and Rahr — who vetted the candidates and made their suggestions to Harrell. Sources, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of they don’t have authority to debate the method, mentioned Barnes was favored by O’Toole, the final exterior chief to guide SPD.
If chosen, Barnes will take over a division practically twice the scale of Madison’s — roughly 1,000 sworn officers in Seattle in comparison with 500 in Madison — in a metropolis with a a lot increased crime charge. Madison’s crime charge is about 34 per 1,000 residents. Seattle’s is about 114 crimes per 1,000 residents. Madison has a inhabitants of 280,000 individuals. Seattle has 755,000 residents.
Barnes has had a strong profession in regulation enforcement, however not with out controversy. He was sued in 2016 over allegations he made a false arrest; nevertheless, the declare was in the end dismissed.
In 2022, he was investigated by the Madison Metropolis Civil Rights Division after he allegedly made feedback a couple of departing feminine officer’s love life in an exit interview with the officer in 2021. The investigation concluded that Barnes didn’t violate metropolis coverage or create a hostile work atmosphere along with his feedback, and he was exonerated of wrongdoing.
Barnes is married to Dr. Stephanie Dance-Barnes, and collectively they’ve three kids: Ashlee, Aeiden and Addison, in accordance with his biography.
He earned a bachelor of arts in historical past/pre-law from Elizabeth Metropolis State College in North Carolina, adopted by a grasp’s diploma in felony justice from the College of Cincinnati. He furthered his schooling with a Ph.D. in management research from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State College.
Earlier than turning into the chief of police in Madison, Barnes served in varied roles, together with director of coaching {and professional} improvement for the Civilian Workplace of Police Accountability in Chicago and deputy chief of police in Salisbury, North Carolina.
His profession is marked by a powerful dedication to neighborhood policing and evidence-based practices of the type which were inspired by the court-appointed monitor of Seattle’s consent decree with the Division of Justice, in addition to town’s Workplace of Inspector Common.
It’s an strategy to regulation enforcement that emphasizes analysis and empirical proof to information the division’s response to crime in addition to tackle disparities in arrests, stops and use of pressure. Barnes was not too long ago inducted into the “Evidence-based Policing Hall of Fame” on the Facilities for Proof-Based mostly Crime Coverage within the School of Humanities and Social Science at George Mason College.
He started his policing profession in 2000 as a patrolman in Greensboro, North Carolina, the place he served in numerous capacities, together with detective. He rose to the rank of captain. He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina, the place he was an assistant chief earlier than he was employed in Madison as chief in 2021.
There may be some irony in his candidacy, because the final outsider to use and be thought of for the Seattle job when O’Toole left in 2017 was former Madison police Chief Cameron McLay.
McLay was the main alternative to switch O’Toole and was high among the many three finalists. Nonetheless, his appointment was sidelined by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan, who acquiesced to neighborhood stress and appointed Finest, who had been O’Toole’s deputy. McLay was briefly introduced in as an adviser to Durkan within the aftermath of Finest’s appointment.