Today is the final day to join the collection of spies, chiefs, cooks, custodians, deputies and martial-arts experts who hope to replace Little Rock’s police chief in June.
Little Rock human resources officials will accept online applications until 11:59p.m. today to replace Chief of Police Stuart Thomas - who announced Jan. 31 that he’d be retiring in late June - and as of Friday, they’d received 55 applications that range from “excellent” to “very unqualified.”
Given the candidates’ wide variety of experiences, City Manager Bruce Moore said he’ll look at applicants through a wide lens and, after rigorous background checks and several interviews, select finalists who will visit Little Rock for more interviews and public forums.
Moore said the 2005 search that led to Thomas’ hiring took about four months, and he anticipates that he will select a new chief in a “similar” time frame.
A review of 43 of the applications made available through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that many are from out-of state applicants who have military or U.S. government backgrounds.
In his application, Gerald Bonifate, a senior operations officer in the National Clan-destine Service, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, cites more than two decades of intelligence work in Latin America and Europe, where he directed and supported ongoing “sensitive operations in support of U.S. national security issues.”
Bonifate, who also worked briefly for the Drug Enforcement Administration, is fluent in Spanish and Albanian Romanian, and is a fifth-degree black belt tae kwon do master with “over 36 years of Martial Arts experience.”
Another applicant, Tim Kimrey, is an “information dominance warfare officer” in San Diego.
Applicant James Speros says he worked as a consultant or adviser for police forces in Afghanistan and Tajikistan after retiring from the San Francisco Police Department. He is now a senior adviser with the United Nations’ mission in Liberia.
Also included in the list of would-be chiefs with federal expertise is U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Brian Marr, who has directed the agency’s operations in Little Rock since 2005. Before that, he helped protect then-President Bill Clinton and his family from 1997-2001.
Moore says he has no particular preference for the next chief ’s background and is searching for a strong candidate capable of running an urban police department. The Little Rock Police Department is the state’s largest with 715 employees, 574 officers and an operating budget of $67 million.
“[Applicants] might be coming from a federal agency now but … maybe they had some type of municipal police experience in the past,” Moore said. “We’ll look at it from a holistic standpoint. Obviously having been involved in municipal police operations is advantageous, but if you’re coming from a federal agency, I don’t think it’ll necessarily disqualify you.”
Although Moore hired an in-house candidate for the job in 2005, he said that doesn’t mean he has a preference for such candidates.
Several Little Rock commanders and supervisors applied for the job in 2005 to replace Police Chief Lawrence Johnson.
One of the first 43 applicants is on the Little Rock police force. Eric Higgins, an assistant chief for the past 10 years, has managed every division in the department and founded and chaired the county’s juvenile crime coalition, his application states.
David Ebinger, a former Little Rock police captain who was a finalist for the chief’s job in 2005 and is now chief of police in Moorhead, Minn., has applied.
Ebinger isn’t the only active police chief interested in the Little Rock job.
After he spent six years as chief of police in Conway, Randall Aragon went to La Marque, Texas, to serve as chief, where he made national headlines for enforcing littering violations and seeking jail time for the offense in an approach to reduce major crimes by showing zero tolerance for petty ones.
Frank Donchez, a police chief in Davenport, Iowa, cited his success in halving his city’s crime rate since he took over in 2008. He holds a law degree as well as a master’s degree.
While there are many promising applicants, Moore concedes there are some who don’t meet the position’s basic requirements.
Kathleen Walker, the Little Rock’s employment services manager, says the job was posted online, which resulted in a number of long-shot applicants.
“Over half of the applications we’ve got shows we’ve got a very good group of applicants,” Walker said. “But when you do [a job hunt] online, you get a lot of job applications that are not applicable, like [from] the cashier at Taco Bell.”
The applicant she referred to works at Chipotle, though he misspelled the restaurant’s name on his application. He has also worked as a security guard.
The city received an application from an unemployed optician, a New York state political consultant, a circuit court clerk and another clerk turned janitor who once completed a 12-week citizens’ police academy at an unspecified date and location.
The position requires a bachelor’s degree or an “equivalent” combination of education and experience, as well as five years’ experience as a manager in a law enforcement agency.
The salary range is $91,038 to $140,199, and the city will require that the new chief live in the city.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/06/2014