Duggan selects Todd Bettison as next Detroit police chief; choice heads to city council
Todd Bettison selected as next Detroit police chief
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced Monday that he has selected interim police chief Todd Bettison to serve as the permeant chief. The Detroit City Council must now confirm the choice.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - Mayor Mike Duggan selected current interim police chief Todd Bettison as his pick for the next chief of the Detroit Police Department.
The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) conducted a nationwide search for the next police chief after James White left last year to lead the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. After interviewing five candidates at a meeting last month, the board sent three candidates to the mayor – Bettison, Joel Fitzgerald, and Joshua Wallace.
When announcing his pick, Duggan called Bettison "a unifying force," and praised a 20% drop in homicide rates in the city since Bettison was named interim chief.
"All I can say is, ‘Wow,’" Bettison said before thanking the people who helped him to where he is today, including his family.
The backstory:
Bettison has worked closely with Duggan as the deputy mayor of Detroit. In that role, he spearheaded the city's violence prevention program.
Before being named deputy mayor, Bettison spent 27 years with the Detroit Police Department, where he was second in command under White.
Bettison beat out two other candidates with decades of policing experience.
Fitzgerald started his police career as an officer with the Philadelphia Police Department in the early 1990s. He has held the role of police chief with five different departments over a 15-year span.
Wallace has been with the Chicago Police Department for 25 years and has held a supervisor role for 12 years. He is currently the commander of the bureau of counterterrorism, and has 1,100 officers who work under him. In that role, he recently was the intelligence branch commander for the Democratic National Convention.
What's next:
The Detroit City Council has 30 days to vote on the choice.
The Source: Information in this story is from the Jan. 30 Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting, the FBI-LEEDA website, and previous FOX 2 reporting.