Confirmed by Minneapolis City Council on 1/16/04 as Chief of Police.

Come January, Minneapolis will have a new Police Chief and the pool of candidates could not be more interesting if Arnold Schwarzenegger was in the running.

If the job is going to go to someone outside the department, it will be to one of these three men; William McManus, Charles Moose or Joseph Samuels, Jr. Who are they, where did they come from and what are their chances?

If McManus, 51, gets this job it will be his second move in less than two years. After 27 years with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., where he rose through the ranks to Assistant Chief, he took the top job in the Dayton, Ohio Police Department in February 2002.

He attended Villanova on a football scholarship and later earned a Masters Degree in Management from Johns Hopkins University. He has been effective in relations with minority groups, the NAACP is impressed with him, which is no small task being just an hour away from Cincinnati.

He will have to explain a "no confidence" statement from the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police, but that looks like it may have more to do with his tightening of policies on police pursuits and use of force rather than with issues of character or leadership.

McManus is reported to have said that the Minneapolis job is an opportunity that he could not pass up. Which may lead to questions about his ultimate career goals. He went from being a key man in a department of 3,800 officers to become Chief of a department with just over 500, less than two years later he wants to move to a head a department of 850 officers. Is this where he wants to stay?

It may be hard for Charles Moose to get a fair shake as a Police Chief candidate. After becoming a media fixture during the D.C. sniper hunt, for which he received criticism and praise, he became Time Magazines "Person of the Week" and was then one of Barbara Walters’ "10 Most Fascinating People of 2002." He ultimately resigned his job as Montgomery County, Maryland’s chief amidst the ethical controversy of profiting from a book about the ordeal. All of this may make it hard to take him seriously. He had a good relationship with the community, the officers of the department and the county leadership before the shootings, but the circus that followed had an obvious impact.

Montgomery County officials declined to comment on his candidacy for the Minneapolis post, other than they appreciated the job he did in Maryland.

If you can look past all of that, he does come with a good resume. He rose through the ranks to become chief of The Portland Oregon Police Bureau before taking to post that earned him his fame in Montgomery County, Maryland. He holds a doctorate in Urban Studies and Criminology from Portland State University.

Perhaps with a profile not quite as high as Charles Moose, Joseph Samuels is far from unknown, having just finished a term as the President of the International Association of Chief’s of Police. He was faced with the possibility of having to resign the post when he accepted a $49,000 buyout in August to quit his job as the police chief in Richmond, California. Although he was no longer working his resignation was dated October 31 to allow him to finish his term as IACP President.

Samuels is well respected in the law enforcement community, but his tenure with Richmond did not end well. Supporters on the city council say his leaving was more political than anything else, but critics say that while he was there complaints about officer misconduct were mishandled and that he did not do enough to remedy strained relationships with minority groups.

Samuels said he had a good working relationship with the police union in Richmond and cited a 31% decrease in civil claims against police during his tenure there,

He holds a master’s degree in public administration from California State University and has been chief of police in three different California communities, before Richmond (1999-2003) he served in Oakland (1993-1999) and in Fresno (1991-1993).

They each come with a resume complete with the education and experience to do the job. Each also comes with hard questions about their performance in their previous posts.

If Mayor Rybak believes that he is in for the long haul, and not using Minneapolis as a stepping stone to the next "opportunity that is too good to pass up," his choice could very well be McManus.

The Insiders

Gerold’s name came up last year when Mayor Rybak unsuccessfully tried to oust Chief Olson and she was considered to be the mayor’s top choice to replace him. Rev. Ian Bethel, who co-chaired a community team that recently negotiated an agreement on city policing policies, thinks she has been groomed for the position.

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Gerold has been a life long resident. She is a University of Minnesota graduate and expects to complete a master’s degree in criminal justice from Concordia University in March.

Although Gerold has been with the department since 1997, she did not earn her Peace Officers license until 1997. How can this be? Well, she began her career in a non-sworn position in the department’s SAFE unit, a program that pairs a crime prevention specialist with an officer in a kind of community policing approach to neighborhood livability issues. Gerold rose through the department to become Director of the Community Services Bureau, a position equivalent to a Deputy Chief, but not a sworn law enforcement rank. It was after she earned her Peace Officers license in 1997 that she became a precinct inspector and appointed Deputy Chief last year.

So she looks like an inside favorite, but she lacks experience, which could be an obstacle with the rank and file.

If either Gerold or Lubinski is appointed they will become the first woman to hold the post. With Lubinski there would be another first, she became the department’s first openly gay police officer 10 years ago, partly to help improve police service to the gay community.

She began her law enforcement career as a Dane County, Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy from 1978 to 1987. Her tenure in Minneapolis began in 1988 and includes time in patrol, as a member of the Whittier Community Policing Project, a sergeant assigned to public housing and the training academy, and then as a lieutenant. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from Hamline University.

"In Sharon, every colleague I’ve talked to about her has had good things to say about her," said City Council Member Barb Johnson. "I’ve been impressed with her crisp and professional manner. She is every inch a cop."

"She has a unique strength in terms of leadership. To me, she’s one of those stand-alone leaders," Rev. Ian Bethel said.

"I want a chief that is the best qualified, but it is going to be hard for the mayor to look beyond Sharon and Lucy," Council Member Johnson said, and I agree

It should be every chief’s goal to prepare people inside the organization to take his place when he leaves, and it appears that Chief Olson has done just that. Both Deputy Chief Gerold and Deputy Chief Lubinski are qualified for the position, and despite the high profile candidates from outside, it is my humble opinion that Minneapolis will soon join Milwaukee and Detroit as a major Midwest city with a woman at the helm of their police department.

So will it be Gerold or Lubinski? That is a tougher question that goes more to local politics than to the qualifications of either woman. To me it looks like Minneapolis has an openly gay woman, who has climbed through the ranks, who has the respect of the department and the community and who has the experience and education to qualify her for the job.

It may be too close to call, but there is a good chance that the City of Minneapolis is about to make a bold statement and break some new ground with the appointment of Sharon Lubinski as the next police chief.

We will not have to wait very long to see.