Before the end of the month, the capital city's top lawman, Stuart Thomas, will retire after nearly a decade of leading the state's largest police department.
Who will replace him -- or rather, who should replace him -- remains unclear among rank-and-file officers and has been a topic of discussion both inside and outside the department in the past weeks.
The new chief will inherit the city's largest and most visible department, with a $67 million budget, 700 employees, several capital projects and upgrades financed by revenue from a 3-year-old sales tax increase. Along with that comes an onus to curb crime in a city beset by the perception of a perpetual crime problem.
But a mix of officers, community activists and others have different takes on the stakes in the search for Thomas' replacement, which is being conducted by City Manager Bruce Moore.
Thomas intends to retire June 27, and Moore has said that he plans on having a successor in place when that happens. The position will pay anywhere from $91,038 to $140,199. Thomas earned $140,424 annually.
After a months-long search involving interviews, tours, forums and meet-and-greets with three finalists -- who have a combined seven degrees, 76 years of policing and innumerable awards, honors and certifications -- Moore's final decision has yet to be made.
Jeff Walker, a criminal justice professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said the selection and installation of a new police executive can be complicated.
Invariably, when a set of finalists includes a ranking member from within the department, the debate of whether to hire from within or pull from outside becomes a serious consideration, Walker said.
Of the three candidates, two of them -- Kenton Buckner, 45, an assistant police chief with the Louisville, Ky., Metro Police Department, and John Ray, the chief executive deputy for the Tarrant County, Texas, sheriff's office -- have never policed in Arkansas. Ray's Texas agency would not release his age.
Little Rock Assistant Police Chief Eric Higgins, 49, the third candidate, has worked for the city since 1984 and has been an assistant during Thomas' entire administration.
"[Going outside or inside] are almost offsetting," Walker said. "The big advantages of someone from the inside is they know the system, they know how it works. ... But the disadvantages are, if you don't have someone who is ready -- I mean really ready -- if you have to reach too far down into the ranks, that can be an issue."
Sometimes, Walker said, an inside guy is key to rally the rank and file and set a department in the right track, as was the case when Thomas was promoted at the end of the turbulent five-year administration of former Little Rock Police Chief Lawrence Johnson, who hailed from Oklahoma City and was criticized by the department's Fraternal Order of Police on a billboard.
"When Stuart got hired ... we'd had an outsider, and that was kind of a disaster. He was able to calm that [turmoil]," Walker said. "The department has stabilized. ... Now you have some ability to kind of pick."
Robert Webb, a community activist and former city board candidate, said that despite solid finances and new infrastructure, the department is "teetering."
Webb said he believes that a string of fatal shootings involving officers -- nine since 2012 -- have had a chilling effect on relations between the police and the community.
One of those shootings resulted in the death of 15-year-old Bobby Moore Jr. Former officer Josh Hastings was tried twice in Moore's killing, each ending with hung juries.
"With all the incidents that have happened in the past four or five years with the officer-involved shootings, we've got all these things going on. And the last thing we need to do is bring someone in from the outside to fix this," Webb said.
"When you bring people in from the outside, they're here three years and gone. With local candidates, they aren't leaving. They live here."
The head of the city's homicide division, Lt. Glenn King, thinks Higgins would have a calming effect.
When internal conflicts have bubbled up within the department, King said, Higgins has been able to stay above the fray.
"The department's got to feel you and believe you. I think our best chance is with someone already here," King said.
"I don't want to see the Police Department done like the Razorbacks. Every time you look up, its someone's coach from the outside, and it takes too long to get on top again.
"Our city has a lot of aches and pains right now. With the violence we have now, to have some new guy come in, he'll get misled. .... People want a candidate who can come in and turn the city around right away rather than have a year or two to get adjusted and figure out who can adjust."
Melvin Vester, a veteran officer and president of the Little Rock chapter of the Black Police Officers Association, said hiring from within would be good for morale.
Vester pointed out that his organization, which represents more than 100 Little Rock officers, has not taken an official position on Higgins, who is also an organization member.
In Vester's personal opinion, and what was the feeling of most of the members he's talked to, Higgins is qualified and capable to lead.
Picking an outsider, he said, would send a bad signal to younger officers who want to develop professionally.
"[Hiring from within] gives someone else the opportunity to move up. Hiring within would also give the people here the opportunity to work with someone they're familiar with, who might be able to move things along faster," he said.
If Higgins is not picked, Vester said, "then you got the stigma of knowing that [assistant chief] is as far as I can go; you'll never be the top guy. If you have dreams and goals of being the top contender, that might discourage that."
The Fraternal Order of Police has not endorsed any candidate, and the organization only wants the next chief to be willing to sit down and hear officers' concerns and suggestions, union officials said.
Calls to several members of the city Board of Directors were not returned last week, and a message left seeking an update from Moore was also not returned.
There are downsides to hiring an internal candidate, Walker said. Such candidates might be severed from new ideas and new perspectives that an outsider might lend, or worse, be a part of a "good ol' boy" system that can often impede progress or change, he added.
"We've had that here on both sides of the river in the past. The bottom line here, as far as I'm concerned, it should not be automatic to come from the inside or that all internal people are excluded," Walker said. "You need to seriously weigh the pros and cons of who you're looking at."
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen said outsiders aren't the only ones with fresh eyes. Although he said he didn't have a preference for who takes over as chief, he pointed out that none of the candidates have been a chief before.
"Certainly, someone who is a native of the community and known by the community ... would have an advantage ... but that's a two-edged sword," Griffen said. "The person who comes from within the department will be viewed as a continuation of programs or systems, whether they're viewed favorably or not."
The judge thinks that the new chief's most immediate issue to tackle is finding a way to improve the agency's image.
For Griffen, too many police departments are becoming "militarized" and appear more like an occupying force in some neighborhoods than public servants. The department's recent acquisition of two large armored vehicles is a glaring illustration of that, he said.
"We're all in this together, and one of the problems with law enforcement in Little Rock -- and nationally, in many communities -- is that the police are not viewed as friends of the community, they are viewed with suspicion," Griffen said. "That's a challenge because the community needs the police, and the police need to be perceived by the community as allies and not aliens."
Jay Chesshir, head of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, said the department is on good footing thanks to the passage of a sales-tax increase in 2011, which netted more than $80 million in additional city revenue in its first two years. Some of those funds are financing a communications upgrade, new facilities and the hiring or retention of more than 100 officers.
The next chief, Chesshir said, will need to focus not only on the nuts and bolts of policing and providing a safe atmosphere but also on overseeing an effort to foster better community relationships.
"When we were younger, there was a strong community connection with police officers. ... The community trusted those police officers and recognized that while they had a difficult job to do, they were there to do the job in the community and [the public] could assist in that," Chesshir said.
"Continuing to build relationships with all of the facets of our community will be important in creating a safe environment."
Added Chesshir: "It looks as if Mr. Moore has three fine candidates to choose from."
Metro on 05/27/2014