San Francisco Picks African American To Head Beleagured Police Department

A Black deputy chief with the Los Angeles Police Department announced Tuesday that he will lead the San Francisco police force following protests over police killings, reported Reuters.

Bill Scott expects to start the chief job after the new year. The personnel change comes months after San Francisco was rocked by several fatal police shootings and two scandals over text messages with racist language that prompted a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, writes the news outlet:

Bill Scott, the highest-ranking black officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, will replace Toney Chaplin and is expected to start late January. Chaplin, who is also black, has been serving as interim police chief since Greg Suhr was ousted from the top job.

Scott has been with the Los Angeles police for 27 years and was promoted to deputy chief in 2015, according to the mayor’s office. He heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau, which employs 1,700 people and covers an area where some 640,000 people live.

Scott will inherit a list of issues to address with his new position: a U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing review published in October uncovered “numerous indicators of implicit and institutionalized bias against minority groups,” reported The Washington Post.

SOURCE: Reuters, The Washington Post

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San Francisco Picks African American To Head Beleagured Police Department  was originally published on newsone.com