Police Chief Says 15 Years Will Be Enough -- Praise For Fitzsimons' Career Follows Retirement-Date News

When Seattle Police Chief Patrick Fitzsimons retires next February after 15 years, he will have held that lightning-rod job longer than anyone else.

Yet his tenure has not been without conflict and his successor will face problems of his or her own, including a demanding City Council that has called for better relations between the police and the community and an emphasis on crime prevention.

Announcing Fitzsimons' decision at a news conference yesterday afternoon, Mayor Norm Rice said Fitzsimons' "leadership will be sorely missed, and Pat Fitzsimons will leave some very big shoes to fill."

Rice said that between now and February, he would conduct a national search and hire a search firm to help find a replacement for Fitzsimons. But he also encouraged members of the Seattle department to apply. Rice said a citizen advisory panel will be involved in the process.

Later, Fitzsimons suggested that U.S. Marshal Noreen Skagen, a former Seattle assistant chief, would be a good candidate. Ed Striedinger, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, said either of assistant chiefs Mike Brasfield and Ed Joiner would make a good and popular choice.

To warm applause from the Police Department's top officers, who looked on in the mayor's conference room, Rice said the chief "can retire next year, knowing he has done his job and done it well."

Fitzsimons - after getting a laugh by joking that he was about to file for the vacant seat on the City Council - said he decided to retire Feb. 5 on his 15th anniversary with the department because he wasn't ready for another four years of 50-hour weeks and sometimes 12-hour days.

"I would just like to work on one or two projects at a time, not 10 or 20," said Fitzsimons, who will be 64 when he turns in his badge.

Financial difficulties ahead for successor, department

Fitzsimons said he sees tough times ahead for the Police Department, which has a $107 million annual budget and 1,100 uniformed officers. The shrinking economy, the department's budget constraints, a proposed limit on the department's management staff, and potential budget problems arising if anti-tax Initiatives 601 or 602 pass all will make a police chief's job tougher, he said.

Back in his office and away from the cameras a few hours after the news conference, Fitzsimons looked relaxed.

Sitting back in his chair, accepting calls from well-wishers, including William Gerberding, president of the University of Washington, Fitzsimons smiled broadly and seemed at ease with his decision to retire.

The many meetings, the ride-alongs with officers, the emergencies, the "hot phone" in his Madison Park home, the beeper he has to wear, all have taken their toll and were factors in his decision, Fitzsimons acknowledged.

Career wasn't without controversy

"The effort and energy a job like this requires . . ." he said, shaking his head.

Much of that energy has gone into conflicts and controversy:

-- His firing of two popular officers in 1985 caused a furor in the department. The Police Officers Guild grievance committee called for a no-confidence vote, which never materialized.

-- A community-based movement to oust Fitzsimons failed in late 1987. Several community leaders faulted Fitzsimons for not attacking the drug problem aggressively enough.

-- The chief fired Sgt. Chuck Pillon in December 1987 over issues stemming from Pillon's handling of evidence taken from drug houses in South Seattle. Pillon, a vocal critic of the department and the chief, remains a conduit for dissatisfied officers in the department.

-- City Councilwoman Sue Donaldson joined Councilwoman Jane Noland in August 1991 in suggesting that minorities are not treated fairly by Seattle police officers, and holding Fitzsimons responsible. Under community and City Council pressure, the department in 1991 began sensitivity training for all police officers.

-- In late 1992, Fitzsimons was cleared in an FBI investigation that resulted from accusations - made public by Pillon - that the chief had had improper contact with a 17-year-old busboy at a Seattle restaurant two years earlier.

-- Conflicts with the City Council continued to grow as Fitzsimons was criticized for not being responsive enough to the minority community and for a lack of leadership in combating Asian gangs.

Last spring a majority of council members privately said they'd like to see the chief retire or be replaced because they were tired of the department's stonewalling of their calls for change. Councilwoman Martha Choe, for example, saw a lack of leadership in Fitzsimons.

Council critics also had praise

Yesterday, however, Fitzsimons' council critics praised his accomplishments and, echoing Rice, said the chief had laid a foundation on which the department could build further change in areas such as community policing, the hiring of women and minorities and race relations.

"We have been really lucky to have unusual stability in a good, clean police department," said Margaret Pageler, chairwoman of the council's public safety committee. "He's set some really high standards . . . the new chief will have a great foundation to build on."

The next chief will need to be responsive to public concerns and be able to lead a diverse department serving a diverse city, said City Councilwoman Sherry Harris. The new chief will need to make sure "that our Seattle Police Department is a good place to work for our officers who may be racial minorities, women or sexual minorities," she said.

Said Jeri Ware, chairwoman of the city's Human Rights Commission: "When first here, he really tried to run a tight ship. It just looked like he was beating down." Ware believes the Police Guild has been able to block Fitzsimons' efforts to cull bad apples from the force.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has hammered on the department's procedures for investigating citizens' complaints against officers. It wants the chief to be more responsive to suggestions made by an outside police auditor, said Jerry Sheehan, legislative director for the ACLU.

Hired to restore police image

Those kinds of issues are a far cry from the problems Fitzsimons came to Seattle to tackle. He was hired to polish the image of an organization tarnished by several years of police payoff scandals. "The distrust between officers, commanders and the political leadership was so strong it undermined much of the department's work," Rice said yesterday. Fitzsimons turned all that around, the mayor said.

A former Marine who graduated from Fordham University and Fordham Law School and spent a postgraduate year at the Harvard Law School's Center for Criminal Justice, Fitzsimons was an assistant chief in the New York Police Department in charge of a 250-person management and planning division when he was hired by Mayor Charles Royer in 1979.

His caring for officers cited

Inside the department, reaction to the boss's pending retirement was muted, with many officers characteristically not wanting to be quoted in the press about anything, let alone Fitzsimons' departure.

Striedinger, the guild president, said the decision was not a surprise. "It's something we all knew was due to happen," he said.

Striedinger said Fitzsimons has been "good for this department," although he said he believes the chief has been frustrated by the City Council's micro-management.

Sgt. Harry Bailey, guild vice president, said Fitzsimons is someone who really cares about police officers, showing special sensitivity by spending hours at the hospital when an officer is shot and by making sure that officer's family is taken care of.

"It will be difficult to find as good a replacement," Bailey said.

He and Striedinger dealt often with Fitzsimons on disciplinary matters, and both said that while they did not agree with all his decisions, they found him fair and willing to listen.

Patrol Lt. Steve Brown gives Fitzsimons high marks for his professionalism and vision for such things as community policing and the department's anti-crime teams. These are areas, particularly community policing, where officers work as much to prevent crime as to catch miscreants.

"Community policing was a new thing the chief had to get used to," said Johnathon Jackson, of the East Precinct Crime Prevention Council. "Without his support, we couldn't have gotten the support of his staff," Jackson said.

Respect for staff, officers shows

Although Fitzsimons guards his personal thoughts and feelings carefully, there is one topic about which he cannot hide his emotions: the cops who work for him. Yesterday, saying he wished to avoid the tears that would flow if he talked about his officers, he said only, "I have a lot of regard for the staff and police officers." Even then, the tears almost flowed.

Recently, Fitzsimons went to a police call at 2 a.m. at 23rd Avenue and Jefferson Street, where officers had encountered some heavily armed criminals. Recounting the incident, he said, "I roll in and they're removing automatic weapons. They do that all the time, get guns out of circulation.

"They are ready in an instant to go in harm's way. . . . I think they're terrific."