Fort Worth announces police chief finalists; city leaders optimistic about choices

After a nearly three-month-long national search, 51 applicants and nine semifinalists later, Fort Worth announced four finalists for police chief Tuesday morning.

The finalist list — consisting of Fort Worth’s interim police chief, two candidates from the Dallas Police Department and one candidate from Los Angeles — drew general optimism from City Council members and community leaders, although some expressed wariness that the decision has already been made for an internal hire.

The list features: 

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• Former Dallas Deputy Chief Vernon Hale III, who since 2021 has been assistant chief in Prince George’s County, Maryland. 

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• Former Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia, who moved to Austin in November 2024 to be an assistant city manager overseeing public safety. 

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• Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides, who is the sole out-of-Dallas-Fort Worth contender. She is best known for helping create LA’s Community Safety Partnership, a nationally recognized model for relationship-based policing in underserved communities.

Whoever gets the job will lead the department of 1,896 sworn officers and 574 professional staff members, filling the shoes of former Chief Neil Noakes, who stepped down in May after four years in the position, citing a desire to spend more time with family. 

Fort Worth paid $55,000 to search and consulting firm Mosaic Public Partners to find the finalists. City Manager Jay Chapa, who will make the hire, previously said he wants the new chief selected by the end of August and working by September.

Hiring internally versus externally

Alldredge’s name was expected by many to be a top contender, as assistant chiefs are often considered frontrunners when their chief steps down. Still, city leaders broadly expressed optimism about the external candidates vying for the job.

Bob Ray Sanders, a civil rights leader and former journalist, said he’s been happy with Alldredge as interim and wouldn’t mind him taking up the job, as long as the hiring process is fair and he’s best qualified. 

Sanders is confident Alldredge, if hired, will keep up the same commitment to cultivating community relations that he saw Noakes have.

Sanders said he respects Garcia, but he’s concerned about how long the former Dallas police chief would stay in Fort Worth. Garcia worked as Dallas’ chief for almost four years before leaving suddenly in November 2024 to move to Austin and oversee public safety as the city’s assistant city manager.

Garcia left Dallas amid a November ballot initiative that would mandate how many officers the city needs on its police force, although he has since pushed back against assertions that it was the reason for his leaving. He moved to Austin months after his former boss, T.C. Broadnax, left the city manager’s job in Dallas to take the same position in Austin.

Sanders said he didn’t know enough about the other two candidates to comment, but he has heard there is a lot of respect for the Los Angeles Police Department. He feels Tingirides would be equipped to create and bring together diverse communities in Fort Worth, as she has worked to do in California.

City Council member Michael Crain’s first impressions of the finalists were positive, he said. While the hiring decision is ultimately left up to the city manager, Crain said, it’s important for the City Council to be as “open-minded as possible” as it gets to know each candidate.

He has never met Hale or Tingirides, but Crain said he’s had positive interactions with Garcia, and he’s enjoyed working with Alldredge, who he believes “has proven time and time again that he loves Fort Worth and wants to ensure every citizen and resident is safe.”

He doesn’t have a preference between whether a candidate is hired from within Fort Worth versus outside. Although an internal candidate like Alldredge has the advantage of being familiar with the city and department, an external candidate could bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the city, Crain said.

More important than where they’re from, Crain said, he cares about their ability to navigate and understand their position as chief and the public-facing skills it entails.

“The police chief is a front-facing position, and they need to build this trust with the community and be out there,” he said. “Noakes was great at understanding that he did have a public role to play, and also letting his men and women know that they have a public role to play, to build that trust and confidence with the communities.”

Council member Charles Lauersdorf said he’s excited about the four finalists and thinks all would fit in Fort Worth. He said it’s important to him that a chief “understands the balance between listening to the community and listening to his police officers” and will “empower our officers to proactively police.”

“For a position this important, I think it’s incredibly important that we look not only within our department, but outside of it as well,” he said in a written statement to the Report. “We need the best talent for that position, and whether it’s internal or external doesn’t matter to me at the end of the day.”

Council member Mia Hall, who was elected in May, said that she was encouraged by the “caliber of the four finalists” and that each brings unique strengths, experiences and leadership qualities that reflect a high standard of excellence.

“Fort Worth is fortunate to have such qualified individuals to consider, and I remain confident that this process will lead us to a leader who will serve our community with integrity, vision and a strong commitment to public safety,” she said.

Mayor Mattie Parker said the city management team has led an “outstanding search” and it’s resulted in a “tremendous applicant pool.”

“I’m confident that the four finalists are among the best in our nation, which is a testament to the strength and quality of our police department,” Parker said in a written statement to the Report.

Following a controversial city manager hiring process in December, which left some communities of color feeling they were excluded from the conversation, city officials vowed to follow a transparent process to select the new chief. They started the search by gathering community input in February during the selection of the recruiting firm, then solicited public opinion through an open online survey in April. 

Residents will get their first chance to meet the candidates at an Aug. 14 forum at City Hall. Community members can submit their suggestions for questions to be asked at the forum ahead of time online.

Crain said he’s looking forward to the rest of the hiring process being a “very transparent, open process.” He feels it was fair for city staff not to publicize the names of the applicants or semifinalists, as they might be working in places that don’t know they are looking for other jobs.

While the city hasn’t hosted any public engagement sessions since the application launch, officials have hosted multiple “stakeholder engagement activities,” including several with Black community faith leaders.

Still top of mind for some are recent instances of conflict between police and the Black community, namely the 2016 arrest of Jacqueline Craig, a Black woman whose call to 911 ended in Craig and her 15-year-old daughter being forced to the ground and placed in handcuffs with a taser pointed at them. This was joined by the 2019 fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman who was shot in her home by a police officer dispatched to investigate an open front door at the property.

The arrest of Craig led to the creation of the city’s 25-member race and culture task force in 2018, which resulted in a report of findings and 85 pages of recommendations to reduce or eliminate racial and cultural disparities. While Black community leaders have since applauded Fort Worth’s progress in race relations, some said they still feel change is needed, and they are looking to the next police chief to bring it.

Michael Bell, senior pastor at Greater St. Stephen First Church-Baptist in southeast Fort Worth, attended multiple listening sessions over the spring. At the first gathering, he said, city leadership was “pushing for an internal hire.” But at the second meeting, the tone had changed. Amid the pushback from Black community leaders, officials were less directly supportive of an internal hire.

Bell said he was interviewed by Mosaic at the start of the search, and he’s been open about what he feels Fort Worth needs: “Someone as police chief who is going to be transparent and open and who’s going to be concerned and listen to all people.”

While he’s trying to be hopeful that Fort Worth’s visible hiring process is legitimate and genuine, he’s wary that the city could be using the four finalists as “smoke and mirrors” to cover what he sees as a premade decision to hire Alldredge, he said.

He’s worried Alldredge being the only white finalist could be the city’s attempt to buy public support for its preferred hire from a city biased against people of color, Bell said. He fears the homes of the other finalists — two from Dallas, one from Los Angeles — have the same aim.

“What do they say in Fort Worth? ‘We’re not Dallas,’” he said. “When you think of those kinds of sentiments, anyone who can think and chew gum at the same time could come to a conclusion of what’s wrong with this picture.”

He said he was concerned that Alldredge wouldn’t be a “police chief for all people.” The interim chief, along with Noakes, in 2022 opposed the creation of a civilian-led police oversight board, which was a recommendation of the race and culture task force. City Council members ultimately voted 5-4 against the creation of the board, although community leaders of color have continued to push for it.

Sanders, who was a co-chair on the race and culture task force, has more positive feelings about Alldredge, and he said he was happy with the four finalists, and he feels the applicants’ caliber of talent says a lot about Fort Worth’s quality. 

Sanders said he doesn’t share Bell’s concern that the hiring process is “an act,” or that the city has already decided to hire an internal candidate, and he has faith in Chapa and city staff. 

Sanders said he expects the public engagement session to be telling of candidates’ skills and attitudes, as long as the community asks honest questions that the candidates don’t see coming.

“I’m going to be looking for honest answers, sincerity and commitments,” he said. “It’s going to take some chances to get to know them. It’s hard to get to know people in three or four meetings, but you’ll be surprised at how much you can learn from some of those encounters.”

More important to Sanders than a police chief’s race is their desire to create community, he said — something that can be done by people of all races.

“I’m expecting from whoever is (hired), one of the first things they will do is reach out to these communities and say, ‘How can we help you most?’”

Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601. 

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