Richland chief in the running to be top cop somewhere else

Richland’s police chief is vying for a job in his home state of Oregon as Eugene’s top cop.

Chris Skinner, who was hired to be chief in Richland in 2011, is a finalist in the city of about 160,000 people. He’s competing against an assistant police chief from Vancouver, Washington, and a former police chief of Norfolk, Virginia.

Skinner and the two other candidates touched on Black Lives Matter, homelessness and school shootings during a Tuesday evening forum in Eugene.

The forum, attended by about 85 people, was a community job interview of sorts. The public opinion will be one of the factors that Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz will consider before he announces his hiring decision by the end of next week.

As police chief, Skinner runs Richland’s police force as well as the Southeast Communications Center, or SECOMM.

Skinner said that in a former job in Hillsboro, with a large Latino community, he worked to keep youth in school and provide opportunities for students with migrant parents.

On homelessness, the finalists agreed that policing alone won’t solve the problem and the larger community — public agencies, social service agencies and others — must be involved.

Skinner said officers need more training on how to interact with homeless people. He said there’s a need for more homeless shelters in Eugene.

The finalists were asked about steps they’d take to keep the community’s faith in the police department in case of an officer-involved shooting or a controversial use of force by officers.

Skinner said police departments too often don’t share details about these encounters because of investigations, and they need to be more forthcoming.

“I think there’s opportunities to share information with the community about these traumatic and lethal encounters that do not jeopardize the investigation and do not jeopardize the privacy of the officer or the victim or the suspect in the case,” he said.

Officer-involved shootings in the Tri-Cities are worked by the Special Investigations Unit. The last time a Richland officer was involved in a fatal shooting was 2014.

All the finalists said that a civilian police department has no role in federal immigration enforcement.

The most powerful responses during the hourlong session came when the finalists were asked to identify a policing event in the past 15 years that most affected them.

Skinner spoke of the 1999 Columbine school shooting. “It’s crazy to me that we’re still there,” he said, referring to the frequency of school shootings since then.

He said it’s vital for a community and police force to protect children. He said people no longer can remain silent if they have suspicions that someone is planning a violent attack.

“I think society owns a piece of the violence that is happening in schools because we choose to sit quietly, and we choose not to say anything,” Skinner said. “I think it’s important that we take some ownership on that.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2018 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Richland chief in the running to be top cop somewhere else."