The Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Charles Moose, the public face of law enforcement during the investigation of last year’s Washington-area sniper attacks, has applied to be the next police chief in Minneapolis, the Star Tribune reported Saturday.
The newspaper said unidentified sources confirmed that the former Montgomery County, Md., police chief was one of 26 candidates who have applied for the position.
Moose’s wife, Sandy, told The Associated Press Saturday that the family had no comment and said her husband was unavailable. A spokeswoman for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told the AP he isn’t legally allowed to disclose who the candidates are.
Moose, 50, was a keynote speaker at an Oct. 31 terrorism symposium in Anoka, and he hinted at a news conference that he was looking for a new chief’s job if the right opportunity presented itself.
Police and county officials who know Moose say he is highly regarded for his leadership skills and ability to communicate with the public. He resigned as Montgomery County chief in June to write a book about the manhunt for the snipers.
“What struck me when I first met him was his openness to progressive policing and strategies,” said Phil Andrews, who heads the Montgomery County Council’s Public Safety Committee.
For instance, Andrews said, Moose strongly supported placing cameras at red lights to catch people who blew through them. In the first year they were placed at 10 intersections and 30,000 people were caught. Now there are 40 cameras in the county.
The new Minneapolis chief will have to deal with several recent high-profile police brutality allegations, the expected completion of a federal mediation agreement to improve police-community relations, and the problem of budget cuts. The list of applicants for the chief’s job isn’t public, but several internal candidates have confirmed that they applied.
Current Chief Robert Olson’s contract will expire in January, and Rybak has said he won’t renew it. Rybak failed in his attempt last year to remove Olson. The two have never agreed on the chief’s leadership style, which has been to let his precinct inspectors take his message to rank-and-file officers.
Rybak’s spokeswoman, Laura Sether, said the mayor isn’t allowed under state law to comment until the finalists are announced, which is expected the week of Dec. 8. The city expects to interview finalists on Dec. 13-14 and extend an offer before the holidays, with the goal of hiring a replacement before Olson leaves office, she said.
Moose was born in New York City but raised in Lexington, N.C., where he lived until he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While there, he was recruited into a law enforcement career by the Portland, Ore., Police Bureau. Moose worked in Portland from 1975 to 1999 and was chief for the last six of those years.
After Portland, Moose went to Montgomery County, which has 1,100 sworn officers. Minneapolis has about 810.
During his tenure he became the media focal point during the search for sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.
Muhammad, 42, and Malvo, 18, are accused of carrying out 13 shootings, 10 of them fatal, in a three-week crime spree in October 2002 that spread terror across the Washington area.