In 1892, Omaha, Nebraska, Police Chief Webber Seavey invited 385 police chiefs to meet and discuss forming a national police organization for the purpose of bringing proficiency, pride, consistency, and dignity to this righteous calling we know as professional policing.

The group continued to meet each year, and the number of members continued to increase; at their ninth convention, in 1902, the group was officially named the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It is truly my honor and privilege to assume the presidency of the IACP 117 years later.

Presidential Priorities

Global Road Safety

In the United States alone, we lose more than 40,000 people in fatal traffic crashes every year. Staggering. Imagine if there was a virus or a transportation defect recall that claimed 40,000 lives a year. People would stand in horror until the issue was resolved, yet we’ve become so numb to these fatalities, as well as the thousands harmed or catastrophically injured in predictable and preventable traffic crashes.

While those numbers are both astounding and unacceptable, as a profession, we’ve done an excellent job in addressing those issues though education, enforcement, and engineering. However, there are many other countries that are experiencing even more disturbing numbers of deaths on their roadways. IACP is in a unique position to assist police agencies around the globe.

In 2009, Brazil was listed as eighth in road deaths by country by the World Health Organization. Last year, I traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to assess a project that IACP had started in 2017, in partnership with the Sao Paulo Police. The project focused on speeding, reckless operation of motorcycles, and impaired driving. These efforts have yielded an 84 percent increase in efficiency of screening and detection of impaired drivers and a total reduction of 1,100 traffic fatalities from the combined efforts of enforcement, engineering, and public education.

One of my key goals is to make global road safety a priority and expand our highway safety efforts. We have recently been awarded another phase of this grant, totaling nearly $16 million over five years, which will allow the IACP to partner with 14 additional cities in 7 countries.

Police Response to Active Threats

In the United States, we continue to experience the threat of active shooters. As a profession, we have done an excellent job in training our officers as well as our communities in police response to these types of incidents. However, I have learned in my travels over the past several years that “active shooter” is not the typical attack in other countries. Law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom and other countries find themselves responding to different threats—attacks with explosives, knives, hatchets, and motor vehicles.

Last year, I had the opportunity to travel to London where the IACP Board was briefed by the Counterterrorism Unit regarding the terrorist attacks over the past two years. These incidents, which many of you remember, included knife attacks and terrorists using cars and trucks to run down innocent victims. It is clear that terrorism shows up in many ways, and we must be prepared for all possibilities. In recent years, terrorists have changed both their methods of attack and their targets.

Immediate Past President Cell recently assembled a Targeted Violence Task Force in the wake of these mass shootings. This task force is looking into the factors that drive persons to commit acts of violence and what steps can be taken to prevent them. I highly commend Immediate Past President Cell for his work in establishing this group of experts.

In concert with this group looking at prevention, I plan to assemble a task force on Police Response to Active Threats. This group will be the next stage, if you will, following on the success of the Targeted Violence Task Force. The Active Threat Task Force will conduct research on the types of attacks I have described and determine best practices for police response to those threats. In addition, the task force will document the importance of police training and the need for additional federal funding in this area.

Officer Suicide Prevention

Every year, like many of you, I attend the National Police Week ceremonies in Washington, DC, and am deeply distressed by the number of names added to the wall annually. Every one of those officers who died left behind a family and an agency in mourning. Every one of those deaths is tragic and heartbreaking.

However, several years ago I noticed a disturbing trend—we were losing more officers to suicide than those killed in the line of duty. In the United States, in the first eight months of 2019, we lost 87 officers in the line of duty, and we lost 122 officers to suicide. This is an intensely critical issue for our profession worldwide.

Nearly 70 police officers in France have died by suicide in the first eight months of 2019. The suicide rate for police officers in France is 36 percent higher than the general population. In Italy, 37 officers died by suicide during the same time period. The Labour Party in the United Kingdom recently called for a review into police welfare, reporting that 336 officers have died by suicide in the last 18 years.

Why is this happening? As leaders in our profession, this is a disturbing trend that we need to address head on, examine, treat, and reverse. We need to make it okay for our officers to ask for help.

I am proud to say that the IACP recently obtained a $1 million grant from the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), to specifically address this issue. Working in partnership with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, we have already assembled a consortium of nearly 40 subject matter experts from a variety of fields, to be led by the BJA and me. We met here in Chicago and began a groundbreaking conversation on law enforcement suicide. Working with this team of experts, we will help you reverse this trend and save officers’ lives.

While there will be a great number of issues throughout the coming year that the IACP leadership will tackle for our profession, these are my three priorities. I look forward to working closely with many of you on these important topics.

I am honored to serve as your president, and I hope that you find me both prepared and qualified to lead what I believe is the finest law enforcement organization in the world.🛡