Questions to Ask a Police Chief Candidate in an Interview
For a city manager, council, search committee or community panel interviewing candidates for police chief. The questions run in an order a panel can follow: why this job and the candidate's record, use of force, discipline and the union, crime and community trust, budget and staffing, and how they would work with the people hiring them. Each has a note on what a strong or a worrying answer sounds like, and where the answer depends on local law or the contract, the note says to ask how it works in your city.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Fit and record
Why do you want to be chief here, and what have you learned about this department so far?
Why ask it
A candidate who has done the work quotes your own material back to you: the annual report, recent council minutes, the labor contract, the coverage of the last chief's exit. Praise for the community in general is what gets said to every city on a candidate's list. Follow up by asking what they read that worried them.
What would you do in your first 90 days as chief?
Why ask it
The stronger plans are mostly listening: riding along on every shift, sitting down with the union and with the department's critics, reading the complaint and force files before reorganizing anything. Be wary of a finished list of changes from someone who has not yet seen the inside. Ask what they would deliberately leave alone until they had.
How would officers who worked for you describe your leadership, and what would the ones who disliked it say?
Why ask it
Most candidates have a ready line about leading from the front or keeping an open door. The part about the officers who disliked it is harder to rehearse, and it tends to show what the candidate insists on: close report review, unpopular transfers, discipline that stuck. Hold it against what the union and a few line officers at the last department tell you.
How did crime, complaints and staffing change under your last command, and how much of that was your doing?
Why ask it
Crime moves for reasons no chief controls, and a candidate who says so is being straight with you. Someone who claims every good number and puts every bad one down to outside forces will report to you the same way. Have them name where the figures are published, then look them up before the next round.
Why are you leaving your current post, and what will people there say when we call them?
Why ask it
Say plainly that you will call past the listed references, to the union president, a council member and a community critic, and notice whether the account shifts. A plain version that matches what you later hear is worth more than a flattering one. Vagueness about the departure is the thing to run down before any offer.
Tell us about something that went badly wrong on your watch. What did you do in the first two days?
Why ask it
You are asking for a sequence: who they told, what they secured, what they said in public and to the people affected. An answer that jumps to what the investigation eventually found has skipped the two days you asked about, so bring them back to hour one.
What did you change in your last department that is still running without you pushing it?
Why ask it
Changes written into policy, training and the way supervisors review work tend to outlast the person. Changes that depended on the chief turning up fade. Get the name of someone still there who could confirm it, and add them to your reference calls.
Has there been a lawsuit, a sustained complaint or a no-confidence vote with your name on it, and what should we hear from you first?
Why ask it
A long career in command usually collects some of these, so a flat no from a veteran deserves a second question. What you are weighing is whether their account matches what the background check finds. What you may ask and verify depends on where you are, so settle that with your human resources staff or attorney before the interview.
How is this department different from the ones you have led, and where would the job stretch you?
Why ask it
A candidate from a much larger agency may never have presented their own budget or known every officer by name. One from a smaller agency may never have run a command staff or dealt with a full-time press corps. The ones worth hiring name the gap themselves and say who they would lean on.
Use of force
What is your philosophy on use of force, and how would an officer here notice it in an ordinary week?
Why ask it
The philosophy is easy to recite. What an officer notices is where it lands: the wording of the policy, what is practiced in training, what a sergeant reviews, what gets someone disciplined. A candidate who stays at the level of values has probably not run a force review system.
After an officer uses force, who looks at it, and what happened the last time that review found a problem?
Why ask it
Anyone can describe the chain of signatures. The last time it caught something tells you whether review is a check or a formality. If they cannot recall a review that led to retraining or discipline, ask how many reports went through it that year.
An officer shoots someone tonight. Who investigates, who do you call first, and what happens to the officer?
Why ask it
Who investigates a shooting by police, and what happens to the officer meanwhile, is set by law, policy and contract where you are, so ask your attorney how it works there before you judge the answer. What you can judge is whether the candidate has an order of steps, knows which of them a chief does not control, and thinks of the family of the person shot as well as the officer.
Where do you stand on releasing body camera footage after a serious incident?
Why ask it
Release rules differ from place to place, so find out what yours allow before the interview. Then hear whether the candidate has a default, such as release within a set number of days unless a named reason applies. 'Case by case' often turns out to mean when the pressure gets high enough.
Which use of force figures would you publish, and how often?
Why ask it
A concrete answer names the breakdowns, such as type of force, area and who it was used on, and a schedule. Ask what their last department published and where to find it, then go and look. If there is nothing to look at, you have heard an intention.
How do you get officers to slow a call down, and to step in when a colleague goes too far?
Why ask it
Policy language is the smallest part. Better answers involve scenario training, supervisors who praise a call that was slowed down, and visible protection for the first officer who intervened. The telling detail is what became of an officer who did step in, and of the one they stopped.
What would you change about how officers respond to someone in a mental health crisis?
Why ask it
What is possible depends on the services your county and local providers actually run, so a careful candidate asks what exists before prescribing anything. Notice whether they have worked with a co-responder or civilian response team and can speak about its hours and its limits, not only its name.
Which tactic or unit have you restricted or shut down, and how did officers take it?
Why ask it
Vehicle pursuits, certain warrant entries and plainclothes street teams are the usual examples. A chief who has never taken a tool away has either inherited a faultless department or avoided the argument. You want to hear how the risk was weighed and whether the restriction was still in force a year on.
Discipline and union
Tell us about an officer you dismissed or tried to. What happened next?
Why ask it
Dismissals are often appealed, and how appeals and reinstatement work where you are is a question for your labor attorney. The story shows whether this candidate documents properly, stays with a case through the appeal, and can manage the officer's return if the decision is overturned.
How do you handle a serious complaint against a popular, productive officer?
Why ask it
This is where a discipline system either holds or bends. The answer to hope for is the same process and the same timeline as for anyone else, explained to the officer in person. Talk of the officer's value to the department before any mention of the facts is the warning.
How should a resident's complaint be taken, investigated and closed, and what should that resident be told at the end?
Why ask it
Details separate a working system from a described one: how many ways there were to file in their last department, whether unsigned complaints were looked at, how long a typical case took. How much of the outcome can be shared varies with local law and the contract, so ask how it works in your city. For the resident, the closing letter is the whole system, so hear what the candidate thinks it should say.
What is your view of civilian oversight, and how have you worked with a review board or an auditor?
Why ask it
Whether you have a board or are only considering one, you need a chief who can disagree with it without stonewalling it. Ask for a recommendation they first opposed and later adopted. A candidate with nothing but praise or nothing but complaints has likely kept oversight at arm's length.
How would the union president at your last department describe working with you?
Why ask it
Neither 'we got along fine' nor 'they fought me on everything' is what you are after. A chief who has both signed agreements with the union and taken a grievance all the way has a working relationship with it. Then call the president and compare the two accounts.
Which parts of a labor contract make accountability harder, and how have you worked within them or bargained around them?
Why ask it
In some cities the chief sits at the bargaining table and in others never sees it, so tell the candidate how it works in yours. Someone who can name the kinds of clause that matter, such as time limits on investigations or how long records are kept, has read contracts closely. Blaming 'the union' in general suggests they have not.
How do you spot an officer heading for trouble before there is a serious incident?
Why ask it
Most will mention an early warning system that counts complaints, force reports, sick days or missed court dates. The system matters less than what a supervisor does when the flag goes up. Ask for one case where stepping in early worked and one where the signs were missed.
What happened to the last officer who reported misconduct by a colleague in your department?
Why ask it
Every candidate will say such officers are protected, which is why the question asks about a particular one: their next assignment, their next promotion, whether they stayed. If nobody ever came forward in a long command, ask the candidate why they think that was.
Crime and community
How would you bring down violent crime here, and what from your last command shows your approach works?
Why ask it
A careful candidate wants to see where and when your shootings and robberies cluster before prescribing anything. From there, the answers with substance are narrow: a small number of places and people, detectives who close cases, partners outside the department. If the plan is 'more proactive enforcement', find out what it did to stops and complaints last time, and whether crime also fell in the cities next door.
Which parts of this community trust the police least, and how would you find out why?
Why ask it
A prepared candidate names neighborhoods or groups from your own surveys, complaint records or local news. Finding out why should mean going to those residents' meetings on their terms, not inviting them to an open house at the station. Be skeptical of anyone who says trust here is broadly strong.
Describe a meeting with residents who were angry at your department. What did you change afterward?
Why ask it
What changed afterward separates listening from sitting through it. Small changes count: a sentence of policy, a new habit of notifying a family, a different commander at the next meeting. If nothing changed, ask what the meeting was for.
What does community policing mean for how an officer spends a shift?
Why ask it
The phrase is stretched to cover almost anything, so ask for hours and assignments: officers who keep the same beat, time not tied to the radio, a named officer who owns a recurring problem. If the answer is events and a liaison unit, the idea sits beside patrol instead of inside it.
How will you know whether stops, searches and arrests are falling more heavily on some groups than others?
Why ask it
The steps to hear are collecting the data, having someone outside the department analyze it, and publishing the result when it is unflattering. What must be recorded differs by state, so ask what applies locally. 'We treat everyone the same' answers a different question from the one you asked.
How do you decide what the department enforces heavily and what it leaves alone?
Why ask it
Every department chooses, and a candidate who says 'we enforce the law' is declining to admit it. Ask who they consult, whether residents, prosecutors or the council, and how they explained one such choice to a neighborhood that wanted the opposite.
Tell us about a problem you handed to schools, service providers or a neighborhood group because police could not fix it.
Why ask it
A good answer has an address in it: one building or corner with repeat calls, a partner by name, and what happened to the call volume. 'We have strong partnerships' with no example usually means standing meetings. It also shows whether this person can give work away.
Which surveillance tools, such as license plate readers or drones, would you want here, and who should sign off on them?
Why ask it
Rules on what police may buy, keep and share differ by state and city, and some councils must approve each tool, so find out what applies to you first. The reassuring answer puts a written policy, a limit on how long data is kept and a public report ahead of the purchase. Worry about a candidate who treats the equipment as an operational detail the council need not see.
After a critical incident, how soon should the department speak, and what do you say when you know very little?
Why ask it
You are hoping for a habit: a first statement within hours giving what is confirmed, what is not, and when the next update will come. Then ask about a time an early statement turned out wrong. A chief who corrected it as loudly as the original has given you the better answer.
How do you work with reporters who cover the department critically?
Why ask it
Listen for specifics: how often they took questions in person, how quickly records requests were answered, whether any outlet was ever frozen out. Public records rules are set by law where you are, but the chief's attitude decides whether requests are met grudgingly or helpfully. A reporter from their last city can tell you which it was.
Budget and staff
What is the largest budget you have managed, and where did you last find money without asking for more?
Why ask it
The figure tells you whether your budget would be a step up or a step down for them. Finding money shows whether they know where it goes: overtime, vehicles, vacant positions, outside contracts. A candidate who has never moved money inside a budget will bring every new priority to you as a new request.
If the city asked for a five percent cut, where would you take it and what would you protect?
Why ask it
There is no right answer here, only a ranking, and the ranking is what you came for. Notice whether training and supervision go first, since they are often the easiest lines to cut and the slowest to rebuild. 'It cannot be done' suggests the candidate has not been through a bad budget year.
How would you work out how many officers this city needs?
Why ask it
The answer that holds up starts from workload: calls, time spent on each, and how much of a shift should be left free. A count of officers per resident set beside the city next door says little about what your officers do all day. Ask which tasks they would move to civilian staff or another agency before requesting more sworn positions.
How do you keep overtime under control?
Why ask it
Overtime is a common place for a police budget to slip, and long hours wear officers down. Useful answers name who approves it, how it is tracked by person, and what was done about court dates and special events. One figure settles it: how far over or under the overtime line their last command finished.
What is your plan for recruiting and keeping officers, and what would you refuse to lower to fill a vacancy?
Why ask it
The refusal matters most when the department is short and the pressure is on. You want a named standard they would hold, such as the background check or the length of field training. On keeping people, ask what the exit interviews at their last department said.
How would you earn the confidence of the officers here without promising to go easy on them?
Why ask it
Officers tend to watch a new chief for two things: whether the chief turns up on nights and weekends, and whether discipline is the same for a favorite as for anyone else. Good answers are about being present and predictable, not popular. Put a harder version to an inside candidate: which friendships in the building would have to change?
How would you build a department, and a command staff, that looks more like this city?
Why ask it
Recruiting is only half of it. Who gets the specialty assignments and the promotions is the other half, so ask how the command staff changed while they were in charge. Hiring and promotion are bound by law and, in some places, civil service rules, so ask your human resources staff what a chief can do in your city.
How do you choose and train sergeants and lieutenants?
Why ask it
First-line supervisors decide what a policy means at two in the morning, so this is really a question about whether the chief's intentions reach the street. Good answers include training before the promotion takes effect and time the chief spends with supervisors directly. Ask what happens to a sergeant who approves every report unread.
What have you done about officer stress and burnout that people in the department actually used?
Why ask it
The word 'used' is doing the work. Nearly every agency can list a peer support team or a counseling benefit, and far fewer can say whether anyone turned to them. Scheduling, confidentiality and commanders who use the service themselves are the specifics worth hearing.
Working with you
A council member calls you about a relative's arrest or a complaint against one officer. What do you do?
Why ask it
Who the chief answers to depends on your charter, so say it out loud before you ask. The answer to hope for is courtesy toward the member, no special handling of the case, and a call to the chief's own boss the same day. A chief who would quietly fix it for one member will do it for the next.
Tell us about a time you told your boss or elected officials something they did not want to hear.
Why ask it
You are hiring someone who will need to do this to you. Timing is the detail to press on: before the decision was made, or after it had gone wrong. A candidate who cannot think of an example is likely to bring you only good news.
What would you do if we directed you to do something you believed was bad for public safety?
Why ask it
A sound answer has an order to it: argue the point in private, put the objection in writing, carry out a lawful direction, and know the point at which they would resign. Both extremes are worth worrying about, the candidate who would simply comply and the one whose first move is a press conference.
What should we judge you on after a year, and what should we not expect by then?
Why ask it
This lets the candidate propose terms you can write into the first review. Look for a few measures beyond the crime rate, such as how long complaints take to close, vacancies, case clearances or a resident survey. Honest candidates also say what moves slowly, and the culture of a department is usually on that list.
What do you need from us to succeed, and what would make you leave?
Why ask it
The requests are often specific: a say over command staff appointments, backing when discipline is appealed, a budget commitment. Ask yourselves, after the candidate has left the room, whether you can really give those things. A mismatch found now costs far less than a resignation later.
What do you need us to tell you about this department that you could not learn from the outside?
Why ask it
Serious candidates ask about open lawsuits, the command staff they would inherit, when the contract expires and why the last chief left. Answer truthfully, even where it is unflattering. A chief hired on a rosy account finds out the rest within weeks and remembers who left it out.
How to run a police chief interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the interviews
Agree on what the job is in your city
Before anyone writes a question, settle who the chief reports to, who can dismiss them, and how much say the chief has over hiring, discipline and bargaining. Those answers come from your charter, your contract and your state's law, and they differ widely. Ask your attorney and your human resources staff how each works locally, and also which questions a panel may and may not put to a candidate.
Read your own department first
You cannot judge an answer about force review or overtime if you do not know how your own department handles them now. Have the current policy manual, the labor contract, a year of complaint and force summaries and the last budget in front of the panel. The questions under Use of force and Discipline and union work best when you can compare the candidate's account with what happens in your building today.
Give every candidate the same core questions
Choose ten to fifteen questions that every candidate will get, at least two from each group, and decide who on the panel asks which. Follow-ups can differ, but a shared core is what lets you compare candidates afterward instead of comparing how each conversation felt.
Split the list across the panels
Many searches use more than one panel. A community panel gets the most from Crime and community and Use of force, department staff from Discipline and union and Budget and staff, and the manager or council from Fit and record and Working with you. Tell each panel before it starts whether it is advising or deciding. If there is only one panel, go through the groups in the order given here, because a candidate's record makes the later answers easier to test.
Plan for the inside candidate
If the acting chief or a deputy is in the running, give them the same core questions and aim the record questions at their years in your own department, where the panel can check each answer against the files. Officers on a staff panel are being asked to rate a possible boss, so collect their scores in a way that keeps their names away from the candidates.
Settle what stays confidential, and until when
A sitting chief who is named as an applicant elsewhere can pay for it at home, and some will not apply if names come out early. Whether applications and finalists' names are public records depends on your state's law, so ask your attorney, then tell candidates at the start which stage becomes public and keep to it.
In the room
Tell the candidate how your city works
Several of these questions depend on local rules: who investigates a shooting, what footage can be released, who bargains with the union. Say briefly how it works in your city before you ask. You learn more from how a candidate would operate inside your rules than from how they did it somewhere else.
Put one real problem on the table
Pick something your department is dealing with now, such as an overtime line that runs over every year or a backlog of open complaints, and hand each candidate the same figures. Twenty minutes of working it through shows how they think when there is no prepared story to tell. Some searches also stage a short press briefing after an invented incident, which tests the answers about speaking early better than asking about them.
Compare how they treat each panel
A candidate can be one person with the council and another with residents or line officers. Have someone on each panel note whether questions were answered directly, whether the candidate asked anything back, and how they took being pressed. Put the panels' notes side by side before anyone ranks the finalists.
Score alone before you talk
Have each panel member write notes and a rating for each answer before any discussion. Once the most senior or the loudest person has given a view, the others tend to drift toward it, and you lose the independent read you assembled a panel to get.
After the interviews
Check every claim that can be checked
Crime figures, complaint totals, published force data and budgets usually leave a paper trail. Make a list of what each finalist claimed and look it up, or ask the candidate to send the document. A candidate whose numbers hold up has told you something about how they will report to you.
Call past the reference list
Listed references are chosen to be kind. With the finalist's knowledge, also speak to the union president, a council member or manager, a reporter who covered the department and a resident who criticized it. Put the same two or three questions to each and compare what comes back with what you heard in the room.
Visit if you can
For a finalist, a day in their current city can tell you more than another round of interviews. Sit in on a community meeting, walk through the station, and notice how officers and residents talk about the chief when the chief is not standing there.
Tell residents how the choice was made
A new chief starts on firmer ground when residents know what the candidates were asked and what the panel weighed. What can be shared about a personnel decision varies, so ask your attorney, then publish as much of the process as you are allowed to.
Mistakes to avoid
Hiring the answer to the last chief
After a chief leaves under a cloud, panels reach for the opposite: a reformer after a scandal, an insider after an outsider struggled. Decide what the department needs over the next five years and score against that.
Accepting a phrase as an answer
'Community policing', 'transparency' and 'accountability' are said by every candidate. Count none of them until it comes with an example, a number or a document you can ask to see.
Letting one issue fill the hour
A recent incident can take over the whole interview. It deserves its questions, but a chief also runs a budget, a workforce and a relationship with city hall. Keep time for Budget and staff and Working with you, the groups a panel shaken by one event is most likely to skip.
Selling the job
It is tempting to play down the open lawsuit, the vacancies or a divided council in front of a strong candidate. Say them plainly. A chief who accepts knowing the worst has no surprise waiting in the first month, and no reason to feel misled by the people who did the hiring.