MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Police and Fire Commission selected Dr. Shon Barnes as the next police chief on a 3-2 vote Friday afternoon.
The decision came after the PFC heard about an hour of public comment on the finalists for the police chief position. The meeting was the third scheduled by the PFC since conducting their final interviews with candidates last week.
Commissioner Gundlach said his top candidate was Ramon Batista, along with Commissioner Fabiola Hamdam, both of whom voted nay on the motion to select Dr. Barnes.
The Black Leadership Council, Community Response Team, Urban Triage, members of the Civilian Oversight Board, and other community leadership organizations have expressed their support for Ramon Batista, who resigned as police chief from the Mesa Police Department after severe opposition from the police union to Batista’s attempts to bring reforms to the department.
Members of the public speaking during Friday’s meeting expressed concerns about both Chris Davis’s and Dr. Shon Barne’s backgrounds. Davis, the deputy police chief for the Portland Police Bureau, was involved in controversial management of protests through the summer, as well as part of a deadly shooting incident in 2001, according to Associated Press reports at the time. Speakers in the meeting expressed concerns about what they said was a background in predictive policing for Dr. Barnes.
Ananda Deacon, a member of the recently appointed oversight board, again brought a request to the PFC that they delay their selection until the oversight board was able to send formal recommendations to the PFC. Both Deacon and other members of the oversight board have expressed
“He has gone places few chiefs will go,” Amelia Royko Maurer of the Community Response Team said of Batista. “Please choose Batista; he’s bringing a lot of people together across this community.”
Greg Jones from the Dane County Branch of the NAACP said all candidates should have been reviewed for their history in current policy guidelines affecting the use of force and racial profiling.
“You, the board…should identify the best candidate regardless of policy, politics, and any pressure that you are under,” Jones said. “So do your job.”
The process of hiring Madison’s next police chief after former chief Mike Koval’s abrupt resignation more than a year ago in September, 2019 has been an intensive process throughout a year that’s put law enforcement under fresh scrutiny in the wake of high profile police shootings and resulting civil protests. The hiring process has included months of community feedback to the PFC, including multiple meetings and working with the Local Voices Network (LVN) for surveys, small group outreach, and more. Final interviews with the candidates were conducted in closed session and later released to the public, prompting calls from the community for more direct involvement in the process.
This article will be updated.
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