BOISE, Idaho — The city has narrowed its national search for a new police chief down to four finalists.
According to a public records request, the finalists to lead the Boise Police Department are, in alphabetical order of last name:
- Joseph Chacon, Austin Police Department’s assistant chief
- Alice Fulk, Little Rock Police Department’s assistant chief
- Ryan Lee, Portland Police Bureau assistant chief
- Ron Winegar, Boise Police Department deputy chief
The finalists could not be reached for comment on Friday.
City of Boise spokeswoman said Mayor Lauren McLean has not nailed down an exact timeline of the specifics of how the final candidate will hired, but there will be no decision until at least April.
JOE CHACON
Chacon, assistant police chief of the Austin Police Department, has worked in law enforcement for 27 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He’s spent more than 21 of those years with the Austin PD. He began his career as a police officer in December 1992 with the El Paso Police Department. In June of 1998, he joined the Austin Police Department as an officer and detective, according to his profile, and achieved the rank of sergeant in 2007. Since then he has risen through the ranks, and he became the department’s assistant police chief in 2013.
With more than 950,000 residents, Austin is the 11th largest city in the nation, CultureMap Austin reports. According to a December study from WalletHub, the city ranked 125 in the country’s list of safest cities; Boise ranked 25 in the same study.
Austin, similar to Boise, has an ordinance governing camping in public places, and it has become a flashpoint for debate in recent months. In October, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to “unleash” state resources if Austin did not address issues stemming from homelessness. Days after that, Chacon himself told Austin’s Public Safety Commission that, in most cases, people comply with the city’s camping rules, and enforcement isn’t necessary, according to the Austin Monitor. He emphasized enforcement of the ordinance isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, but he did say officers give people a “reasonable” amount of time to comply, the Austin Monitor reports.
In November, Austin police officers cleaned up encampments in the city and, in some places, drew the ire of advocates, according to Austin’s National Public Radio affiliate.
ALICE FULK
Fulk is lifelong resident of Little Rock and has worked for the police department 28 years, with stints in patrol, investigations, professional standards, training and records, according to the city of Little Rock’s website. In her current role running the department’s Field Services Bureau she oversees patrol officers.
She was one of four finalists considered for Little Rock police chief in the spring of 2019, but was not selected. Fulk earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and holds graduate degree in human resource management from Webster University. According to the department’s website, she also attended the Senior Management Institute for Police, Homeland Security Leadership Academy.
Little Rock had a deadly officer-involved shooting in February 2019 related to the traffic stop of a stolen vehicle. The driver of the car, Bradley Blackshire, was shot multiple times by LRPD Officer Charles Starks after Blackshire did not stop the vehicle.
In response to questions about the incident in her community town hall event as part of the LRPD police chief interview process, Fulk said she would institute programs that would help mend the relationship between the community and the officers.
She proposed a program called “Taking Back our City Block by Block” that would assign a city block to each officer, and the officer would be asked to make contact with every resident on that block each week, the Arkansas Times reported.
RYAN LEE
Lee has worked for the Portland Police Bureau since 2000 and rose through the ranks serving in a variety of departments, including patrol, training, personal, fiscal services, strategic services and had stints on the neighborhood response team and as a crime reduction officer. He is a U.S. Coast Guard Veteran and holds a bachelor’s in criminal justice from California State University at Sacramento and a graduate degree in criminal justice from Boston University.
He was a whistleblower in the department in 2002 after he observed two off-duty cops beating a man outside a nightclub while he was a probationary trainee officer and was ordered not to write any reports about the incident, according to the Portland Tribune. Six officers were later disciplined for the cover-up.
As he has risen through the ranks, Lee has become an expert in “crowd management” techniques during protests and has developed much of the city’s playbook for handling large crowds. The bureau has been the center of several controversies over how officers respond to protests in a city where armed clashes between alt-right groups and left-wing protesters have made national headlines.
In February 2019, text messages from 2017 and 2018 became public between Portland Police Bureau Lt. Jeff Niiya, who replaced Lee as the commander of the department’s rapid response team after he was promoted, and the leader of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson. The text messages raised questions of whether officers were giving special treatment to alt-right groups over left-wing counterprotesters.
RON WINEGAR
Winegar, Boise’s deputy police chief, is the only in-house finalist in the city’s search for a police chief. After studying criminal justice at Boise State University and graduating with a degree in criminal justice administration, he joined the Boise Police Department in December 1993. He’s been with the department ever since.
In 2019, he was promoted from the rank of captain to deputy chief. After former Chief Bill Bones’ retirement in October, Winegar served as acting chief of the department for a time before former Boise Chief Mike Masterson was named interim chief.
Winegar was shot while on duty Sept. 20, 1997, when a man in a downtown Boise parking lot opened fire on five Boise police officers, according to the city of Boise’s website. Another officer, Mark Stall, was killed by a second man who fired in the ensuing gunfight. Winegar kept cover on one of the suspects even after being shot; officers killed both men.
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