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City appoints LAPD vet to chief of police post |
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Friday, 14 December 2007 |
 Kathleen Sheehan, a veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Department of Justice, among others, was introduced as the new Bishop police chief at Monday’s Bishop City Council meeting. Photo by Darcy Ellis By Darcy Ellis
Editor 12-13-2007
An almost five-month nationwide search for Bishop’s new police chief officially came to an end this week.
With less than a month to go before Chief Joe Pecsi hangs up his Bishop blues, the City Council on Monday officially appointed Kathleen Sheehan to the top cop post.
Sheehan’s appointment makes her the first woman in Eastern Sierra history to hold such a top-level law enforcement position.
Present for the announcement – which was preceded in recent weeks by widespread speculation about the future chief’s possible identity – were a contingent of Bishop Police Department personnel, curious community members, representatives of all local media and several elected county officials.
According to City Administrator Rick Pucci, Sheehan beat out approximately 50 other applicants from all over the country for the Bishop chief of police job. She was one of six candidates that recruitment firm Avery & Associates, feeling they might “meet or exceed” the city’s expectations, brought in for face-to-face interviews with the City Council on Nov. 5 and 6.
At the end of those meetings, the council made Sheehan a conditional job offer, a necessary step that allowed the city (or rather, its consultants) to perform a formal background check required by the Police Officers Standards and Training agency.
Prior to that, Avery & Associates performed prelimary screenings on the top job prospects.
With Sheehan’s acceptance of the conditional job offer, the firm of James Gardner & Associates conducted an extensive background examination that included a financial background check and thorough medical and pyschological exams.
Test results in hand, the City Council again apparently liked what it saw, eventually meeting in closed session Monday afternoon to finalize Sheehan’s appointment.
According to Pucci, the new chief possesses the right combination of street smarts, police instincts and know-how, as well as administrative experience and leadership ability.
She comes to the City of Bishop armed with more than two decades’ experience in law enforcement.
Last holding the post of senior training administrator for the Department of Justice, Sheehan served with the Los Angeles Police Department for 25 years, retiring at the rank of lieutenant. During her tenure with the LAPD, Sheehan specialized in gang, narcotic, robberyand homicide investigations.
What’s more impressive, Pucci noted, is that while at the LAPD she adapted the world-famous West Point Leadership Program to blend military expertise, behavioral science and police experience into pragmatic problem-solving strategies for law enforcement, civic and corporate applications.
After retiring from the LAPD, Sheehan went to work for the both the Department of Justice, and a private firm that contracted with the DOJ. She specialized in teaching law enforcement training and administration in municipalities and police agencies “all over the world,” Pucci said, including Pakistan and Indonesia, where she focused on gang interdiction work.
“She has a tremendously varied background, not only having experience with the special techniques of law enforcement and gang control” and other areas of crime reduction, Pucci said, “but also in the administrative end.”
Sheehan acknowledged Monday night that while her resume may sound complicated or intimidating, she’s a fairly simple and straightforward person – one who also loves what she does and is eager to get to work in and get to know the Bishop community.
“It’s been a hard-working police career,” Sheehan told those assembled Monday night, “but it’s been fun more than anything else.”
She said she plans to approach her job from the viewpoint that it is the police department’s responsibility to “protect the public from crime and the fear of crime, and to make the quality of life better in the community.”
Sheehan’s official start date is Dec. 27, one day prior to Pecsi’s last day in uniform. Her compensation includes salary and benefits, plus a $7,000 stipend for moving expenses.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 08 February 2008 )
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