Interim Peoria Police Chief Jerry Mitchell is dropping the temporary title. The City Manager and Mayor made the announcement yesterday afternoon before a room full of past and present officers, police managers and city residents.
City Manager Patrick Urich says the choice to appoint Mitchell as chief only made sense.
Urich: “We had just started the search process and as we stared discussed this with the executive recruiter we started talking about the attributes we were looking for in the next police chief it became readily apparent that we didn’t need to do a search because we had all that attributes we were looking for in Jerry Mitchell.”
Chief Mitchell is a Monmouth native. He’s also a Bradley graduate, and played third base on the college’s baseball team. Mitchell took a Peoria Police recruit position in 1990 after college graduation and consistently rose through the ranks to make Assistant Captain in May 2013.
Mitchell says there are programs already in place that are serving the community well. He says maintaining diversity in the Police Department is a primary drive.
Mitchell: “That’s our big push. We want our workforce to look like our community. And I think that is only going to help us with certain segments of our community as well.”
Chief Mitchell says he will make command staff adjustments to fill the assistant chief position and the captain position in the next couple of weeks.