INC NEWS - new Police Chief to be announced

[RW Pickle]

Our City Manager has made one of the best decisions so far in his short
career as such. This is the right time for someone like Lopez here in
Durham. When I asked all three candidates for Chief (during a 2.5 hour
meeting along with several other community leaders) if any of them spoke
fluent Spanish (I didn't know if any of them did), Lopez was the only one
who said he did. He went on to comment to another panelist (who was an
Afro-American female) that he had been a minority (speaking towards his
Spanish heritage) all his life. That took her by surprise as he went on to
answer her question related to minorities getting a fair shake with the
law.  He told her he understood what it meant to be a minority.

Hopefully his wife will like Durham and they will come to be our neighbor
and top cop. It could be like our last Director of Technology who had the
job, but his wife didn't want to move to Durham. So we lost him. I still
don't believe the family of Mike Barros (Director of Community
Development) has moved to Durham from Montana. And this has been almost
two years now...

All three candidates suggested that they would be in the job for 10 years
or more if they were to become Durham's top cop. So we're going to have
Lopez for a while. Like they say, great things are happening in Durham!
Here's a huge one!

RWP
27 Beverly


Lopez tapped as Durham's police chief
By Matt Dees, News & Observer, 12 July 2007

Jose Lopez Sr. of Hartford, Conn., is in final
negotiations with City Manager Patrick Baker to become
Durham’s new police chief, The News & Observer has
learned.

Several people with knowledge of the search and hiring
process, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Lopez will travel to Durham either tomorrow or
Saturday to allow his wife to get to know the area.

“My understanding is that it is Lopez, if she comes
and there’s not a problem,” one of the sources said.
“Apparently Lopez is excited about it.”

An official announcement is expected next week.

Reached for comment in Connecticut, where he is an
assistant chief with the Hartford Police Department,
Lopez would not confirm the reports.

“At this point in time, I’m waiting for the city
manager to notify me,” he said today.

The other two finalists for the job are Ron Hodge,
deputy chief in Durham, and Don Green, a deputy chief
in the Knoxville (Tenn.) Police Department.

Lopez, 53, has earned praise during his 24-year tenure
in Hartford for being tough on gangs, a visible and
vocal presence in the community and for holding police
officers accountable.

He has confronted gang leaders head on and warned them
that they would be arrested if any of their underlings
committed crimes.

And Lopez prides himself on being a disciplinarian,
not hesitating to suspend or fire officers who don’t
meet his standards.

Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez said in May, when Lopez was
announced as a finalist, that his city's loss would be
Durham's gain. "He is a cop's cop, a streetwise cop,"
Perez said.

"He's a community-builder, but still a tough
law-enforcement cop. He's gone up through the ranks
and done a wonderful job for us."

But Hartford has continued to struggle with high crime
numbers during Lopez’s tenure.

In fact, Hartford’s violent crime rate in 2006, in
relation to population, was more than 30 percent
higher than Durham’s.