By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: New Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle has been a chief in Grand Prairie and Arlington, and most recently worked in city management. But he applied for this job for a second time because there's no job he desired more.
David Kunkle, Dallas Police Chief: This is the most perfect dream job I could have. This is what I want to do and feel very lucky. This was the right time for me and I think maybe the right time for the department. I thought being someone who was both inside the department but had been gone for many years would be beneficial.
Zeeble: Kunkle's top three goals as the new police chief include crime reduction, improving officer morale, and increasing service to the community. The latter was mentioned several times by the chief, especially during his speech.
Kunkle: This is a diverse community. At the end of the day, this city of Dallas will be judged in a Police Department by how well we can respond to neighborhoods that have the greatest needs in the communities that have the greatest distrust in the department. We need to reach out to those people who've historically been disenfranchised and not have access to people in power and make sure they're represented and they're treated fairly with respect and dignity [applause].
Zeeble: Kunkle elaborated on this approach while talking to reporters.
Kunkle: One of the primary objectives will be to push operations down into neighborhoods in smaller geographic areas. One of my basic philosophies of policing is that - and it's especially true in a city like Dallas that's large, and diverse and spread out, with so many critical demands in every neighborhood in the city - that the only way to address those is to not centrally manage operations but to push those out into neighborhoods and communities.
Zeeble: Chief Kunkle acknowledged decentralizing some operations will involve reorganization. But he said he has no plans to reduce anyone's rank, which is what former police chief Terrell Bolton did early in his tenure. Kunkle said some commanders will move around, some people will take on new jobs with different responsibilities, but any personnel shifts are at least weeks away. In addition, Kunkle is reviewing other department policies that could have a more immediate impact in the community.
Kunkle: I think we're close to making policy changes in the use of neck restraints and where it falls in the use of force continuum. We're also looking at other tactics that can hopefully reduce deadly force incidents and in-custody deaths. That's one of things that'll affect our credibility with in the community. I've talked of what I did in Arlington regarding the neck restraint policy, back in 1985 where we put it on the use of force continuum right below deadly force. We required every time it was used, that officers had to document its use, in a special report to the chief, and then had to have people see medical personnel. That was Arlington. What we'll do here, I would prefer to implement in a more formal setting.
Zeeble: Chief Kunkle was less reserved regarding goals to improve reportedly low department morale.
Kunkle: I hope to begin to rebuild trust and change as much as possible the tone of the discussions about the DPD. I would like to see all the police labor groups at least try to find ways to work together to recognize they have common interests rather than looking for opportunities to criticize each other. I think that trying to build trust with the city council in understanding their difficult roles and where they're operating from and at the same time understand what our needs are is part of the process. I want the officers to realize they're not a beleaguered beat-down department, but we're all proud to be Dallas police officers and we're going to cure ourselves with pride and uphold the honor of the badge.
Zeeble: The chief also plans to meet with Mayor Laura Miller on a regular basis, at least at first, just as she met with Terrell Bolton. Kunkle said the mayor left it up to him to decide whether those meetings would continue. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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