‘Crime strategist’ and urban police chief Robert Tracy to become top cop in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — Mayor Tishaura O. Jones has selected an urban police chief and former Chicago crime strategist as St. Louis’ next top cop, the first appointed from outside the department.

Robert Tracy, the chief in Wilmington, Delaware, earned national recognition for reducing gun violence there, but was also criticized by city council members for racial tensions and a lack of diversity in the department.

He is set to start here Jan. 9, and inherits a department with a large number of officer vacancies, in a city where the homicide rate is among the highest in the country.

Jones called him detail-oriented, organized, data-driven and dedicated to building community trust.

“Chief Tracy has a proven track record of reducing violent crime,” she said at a news conference Wednesday. “He’s done so in multiple cities and I believe he can do it here.”

“I know Chief Tracy will bring the lessons he’s learned from his service in Wilmington to our city,” she continued.

Tracy will make $275,000 a year — $175,000 from the city and $100,000 a year from the St. Louis Police Foundation. The Foundation said on Wednesday “it did not want compensation to be a barrier in attracting the best qualified candidates.”

Tracy, 58, was born in the Bronx, is married and has five children. He has worked in law enforcement for almost 40 years, including a stint as Chicago’s crime control strategist. He became chief in Wilmington in 2017, amid a surge in gun violence. Two years later, he was recognized at former President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, according to news outlets, for a drop in shootings there: 60% fewer people were shot in 2018 compared with the previous year, which hit a historic high of 194 shooting victims.

“He came here completely unknown, from Chicago,” Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki told the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday. “He changed the department. He changed the culture entirely. He’s been a great chief. You can take the number of detractors he has and put it in a thimble, and he’s got an enormous number of supporters because he worked really hard, and he’s reduced crime dramatically.”

Tracy said Chicago, too, experienced a big drop in homicides over his five years there, and the lowest overall crime rate since 1972.

Tracy’s tenure in Wilmington — a city of 71,000 residents, more than half Black, and 300 officers, 35% non-white — faced challenges: Delaware’s NAACP branch called for Tracy’s resignation after an officer was recorded slamming a suspect’s head into a plexiglass wall during an arrest. And in January of this year, the city council introduced a “no confidence” resolution in his leadership.

Council President Ernest “Trippi” Congo sponsored the resolution, citing a lack of diversity in the police force and saying Tracy’s explanation that there were not enough minority applicants was insufficient.

Councilwoman Shané Darby said Tracy did not do enough to improve racial tensions among staff, to address the department’s relationship with the city’s minority communities or to provide detailed information about officer-involved shootings.

The council passed the resolution, 6-4.

Councilwoman Zanthia Oliver told the Post-Dispatch that Tracy “had to take the hit” because he was the head of the department. She said the concerns were not about Tracy personally but more about morale and tension in the department. She described the struggles as persistent institutional issues plaguing other police departments, such as recruitment of diverse candidates.

And Tracy defended himself on Wednesday, saying he listened to the criticism, addressed it, and it hasn’t been an issue since. “We actually sat down and talked about these things to make sure that we were doing the things that our community expected,” he said.

Former police Chief John Hayden announced his retirement in early September 2021. He was set to retire Feb. 23 but agreed to stay on longer when conflict between the city’s personnel department and the mayor’s office delayed the national search for his replacement.

Hayden made $153,000 as police chief in 2021, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch public pay database.

Hayden retired in mid-June and Lt. Col. Michael Sack took over as interim police chief.

The conflict began in the city’s first search last year when the personnel department was tasked with narrowing the pool of candidates to six finalists. Jones’ public safety director, Dan Isom, was then supposed to pick from those six.

In November, former personnel director Richard Frank sent rejection letters to most of about 30 applicants for the job and gave a written test to Sack and Lt. Col. Lawrence O’Toole. Both are white men with long careers in the department.

In January, Jones told the Post-Dispatch she was dissatisfied with having just two internal finalists for the job and scratched the city’s first search.

This summer, the city hired executive search firm The Boulware Group to help with the second national search for a chief. The Regional Business Council agreed to pay Boulware up to $60,000, the city said.

The Center for Policing Equity, a police organization dedicated to police reform, was also an unpaid partner in the search.

Tracy was one of four finalists for the job. The other candidates were: Larry Boone, a former police chief in Norfolk, Virginia; Melron Kelly, a deputy chief from Columbia, South Carolina; and Sack.

But South Carolina news outlets reported over the weekend that Kelly talked with his family, “realized that there is much work still to be done in Columbia,” and pulled himself out of the race.

Then, Tuesday, Sack told the police department here in an agency-wide email that he had not been selected.

Sack said in the email that the department has been “going through a lot of growing pains” and encouraged employees to continue to adapt to an “ever-changing environment.”

“Together we will continue to work hard to make a difference in our community,” Sack concluded.

Boone did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

Tracy’s remarks Wednesday were focused on crime reduction and building community trust. He said he would take the next few weeks to get to know everyone who wants to be a part of the solution and familiarize himself with members of the department.

Tracy said he worked in Chicago and Wilmington to build trust between the community and the police department, as well as between police officers and their department.

“Firstly, you have to be able to educate people on what you’re looking to do,” he said. “You’ve got to implement it properly. You’ve got to execute it. And then you have to relentlessly follow up. And there has to be respect within an organization up and down the line. When that happens, that expands to external success, because that’ll go out into the community.”

The police chief said his success in Delaware was evident in the letters of support St. Louis officials received from faith leaders and other community members in Wilmington.

“I was humbled — very, very humbled,” Tracy said. “I knew I created a good relationship with the community and the communities of color, but it was overwhelming to get those letters in support of me being a candidate.”

Tracy said he’ll start meeting with St. Louis stakeholders this month to better understand the challenges the city faces while also helping Wilmington officials prepare for his exit.

“This is the right decision for St. Louis,” Isom said of Tracy on Wednesday. “As the former chief of police, I know the qualities of a strong, strategic and committed servant leader is the right fit for our community. Chief Tracy has experienced reducing violent crime while building community trust across neighborhoods, racial lines and ZIP codes.”