A new Dallas Police Department chief will face high expectations from a city where tensions boiled over just months ago with the ambush murder of five officers in July.
Former Chief David Brown served for six years and announced his retirement amid ongoing community protests. His last day on the job was in October.
"There's no training in any sort of guidebook that you can take off the shelf that says 'This is what you do when this happens,'" said Alex Piquero, a criminology expert at the University of Texas at Dallas.
The UTD professor said Brown received praise from many leaders for a steady hand in the wake of the tragedy, which sets a high bar for a replacement.
"Especially following the legacy of Chief Brown, the individual will have very big shoes to fill," said Piquero. "But there's no doubt in my mind that this will be a very tempting job for a lot of police officers around the country who are looking to be in charge of a major department in a major city that's a very desirable place to live and work."
In Brown's time as chief, Dallas expanded the use of Tasers as a deadly force alternative, body cameras to record what officers see and online disclosure of deadly force incidents to improve transparency.
"I see it as a police department to be emulated," Piquero said. "If you look at the city of Dallas's crime rates over the last 30 or 40 years, they are still at record lows."
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Those improvements do not silence all of Brown's critics.
"We want a chief we can be able to trust," said the Rev. Ronald Wright, with the civil rights organization Justice Seekers Texas.
Wright believes Brown fell short on high expectations for improving community relations and alleged police misconduct.
"These officers may have been great officers, and they didn't deserve to die like that. But you can't pick and choose who you're going to pray for. What about the families who have lost loved ones?" Wright asked. "(Former DPD Police Chief) David Kunkle didn't have a problem with working in the community, which we assumed and thought Chief Brown was going to do. But that didn't take place."
There have been four Dallas police chiefs over the past 20 years. Brown, an African-American man, succeeded Kunkle, a Caucasian man who succeeded Terrell Bolton, an African-American man who succeeded Bennie Click, a Caucasian man.
Dallas is now a majority minority city. Less than a third of the city population is Caucasian. But nearly half the city's police officers are white. The Dallas population is 40-percent Hispanic but the police force is only 21-percent Hispanic.
Some Latino leaders say it is time for a Spanish-speaking Dallas police chief.
State Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, is also a criminal defense attorney. He deals with police frequently.
"The officers and what the city does should reflect the diversity of the city. And I think, if it's not doing it, it should work toward it," Alonzo said. "On many occasions there's been tension because there's no communication, there's no understanding. And what we would like is that tension not to be there but communication to happen."
UTD expert Piquero said the right candidate will be able to communicate with all segments of the community.
"I think at the end of the day the Hispanic community, the African-American community, the Asian community, the white community are going to want the best person for the job. Who's going to do policing the right way for the citizens of the city Dallas?" he said.
In Dallas, the police chief is hired by the city manager, and City Manager A.C. Gonzalez has announced that he will retire in January. A national search is underway for the manager's replacement and a chief search will wait until a new manager is on the job.
Current interim Dallas Police Chief David Pughes has said he will not seek in the permanent position.
Copyright, 2013, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (Dustin A. Cable, creator)
