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Sheehan begins work as new chief of police |
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Monday, 31 December 2007 |
 Bishop’s new chief of police, Kathleen Sheehan, started her first day of work as top cop on Thursday. Sheehan is excited to become part of the community and call Bishop her new hometown. Photo by Mike Gervais By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 12-29-2007
“Harleys and horses; this is my kind of town.”
Those words are from Bishop’s new top cop on Thursday, her first official day on the job.
All smiles after being sworn in this week, Kathleen Sheehan has just begun settling into her new role as police chief, and into her new community of Bishop.
With a down-to-earth, enthusiastic demeanor that belies her tough-as-nails reputation, Sheehan is eager to get to know the people and places of the area, be a part of the community and acclimate herself to small-town living, a steep contrast to the hustle and bustle of her former home in Los Angeles.
Sheehan is the first woman in the history of the Eastern Sierra to head up any law enforcement department. Regardless of her gender, she boasts an envied resume that includes challenging police work in some of the toughest areas of the world, including Pakistan, Indonesia and Palestine.
She has trained police forces all around the world, and in Los Angeles she battled gangs and drug dealers. But now Sheehan is looking forward to settling down and working with a community.
According to Sheehan, she was looking for a “hometown” when she applied for the position with the Bishop Police Department, in a city with about half as many residents as officers at the Los Angeles Police Department, where she previously worked.
But before she even clocked in for her first day on the job Thursday, Sheehan said she felt at home.
Sheehan was able to get her feet wet in Bishop in recent weeks, participating in ride-alongs with local officers and getting to know the lay of the land, even witnessing a foot pursuit during a ride-along with Bishop Police Lieutenant Chris Carter – the very next day after being hired on Dec. 10.
But on the administrative and physical aspects of the job, Sheehan doesn’t need much of a tutorial. In fact, she has spent the past few years working as the teacher, training police officers all around the world.
Sheehan has worked for the Department of Justice, training units in Pakistan, Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine. She also worked for a time in Indonesia on an organized crime assignment.
In accepting the Bishop chief of police position, Sheehan left her post in Los Angeles where she headed upthe gang and narcotics division of the North Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Police Department.
She has spent more than 25 years fighting crime and upholding the laws of the City of Los Angeles, during which 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.
Sheehan applied for the post as Bishop police chief in hopes of moving to a smaller community that she looks forward to calling her own.
“I came from L.A. … but I’ve lived all over L.A.,” she said. “I was looking for a hometown.”
Hometown America is what she got. Sheehan said that she can already find herself at home in Bishop, though she moved into the community only a week ago.
Though different from working in the city, Sheehan said that Bishop, or any small community for that matter, offers the same basic principles for police work.
Having gotten settled in and acquainted with her officers and the local officials, Sheehan is ready to begin work.
“My next goal is to meet the community,” she explained. She said that rather than hosting an open house at the police department, she plans to coordinate with officers and supervisors in the department and begin “making the rounds” meeting residents and business owners. “I don’t want to make people come to me, I’ll go out and meet them,” she said.
As far as managing local law enforcement, Sheehan said she feels that the Bishop Police Department is in good shape. “I don’t think anything at the Bishop Police Department is broken, so we don’t have to fix it,” she said.
One aspect she hopes to work on with the officers is community relations.”I think we’ve got the chance to do a better job of that,” by reaching out to the community, she said.
Sheehan said that her job as police chief, and the job of the police department as a whole, is to “protect the public from crime and the fear of crime, and to make the quality of life better in the community.”
Sheehan was one of about 50 applicants reviewed by the city-contracted hiring firm Avery & Associates. Avery conducted interviews with the applicants, which came from all over the country, before selecting six whom they felt were the most qualified individuals. Those six applicants were reviewed by the Bishop City Council, with the job officially going to Sheehan on Dec.10.
“She has a tremendously varied background, not only having experience with the special techniques of law enforcement and gang control, but also in the administrative end,” said Bishop City Administrator Rick Pucci in an earlier interview.
Now-retired Chief Joe Pecsi, whose last day in uniform was yesterday, Friday, Dec. 28, said recently he felt confident leaving the department, knowing that he was “turning it over to good hands.”
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