Krag Campbell will be Juneau’s next police chief after all — for a month in an acting capacity until the runner-up applicant for the top job officially becomes the Juneau Police Department’s deputy chief under new JPD Chief Derek Bos, the City and Borough of Juneau announced Tuesday.
Campbell, a lieutenant who has been with JPD since 2002, will officially assume his new title of deputy chief on Jan. 1, then serve as acting chief until Bos — a newcomer to Juneau after working in Colorado law enforcement since 2006 — is scheduled to begin Feb. 1. Bos is replacing Ed Mercer, who retired at the end of July after serving as chief since 2017 and with JPD since 2000.
[Juneau reaches to Colorado for new police chief]
In an interview Wednesday, Campbell said he expects a lot of his day-to-day duties to be similar to the previous deputy chief, even though he will be working under a chief new to JPD rather than one with years of experience.
“We all have different visions and ideas of things that we want to try to do,” he said. “And in those positions a lot of the day-to-day stuff is very similar as far as the job duties that the deputy chief is required to do — maintaining operations in the police department, managing different budgets and things like that. For me, it’s my personal feeling that is trying to make JPD a better place than when I got here.”
Campbell, whose current duties include serving as JPD’s public information officer, said one of his top goals as deputy will be a continuing effort at community engagement.
“My goal is to bring back a lot of our community policing events and engagements, and just working on building that relationship with the community,” he said. “I think definitely during COVID times we saw it dip because you just can’t be out there as much and doing things, so just bringing that back to the forefront.”
“But at the same time just keeping our employees’ wellness at the top of our priorities because we need to maintain our staff because we have some huge staffing issues going on. We’re working on recruiting people outside of Juneau, within Juneau and that’s probably one of the biggest struggles we’re going to face.”
Campbell was among three finalists for the chief’s job this fall, with one of the candidates dropping out citing personal reasons. He is currently the head of special operations for JPD, which includes overseeing criminal investigation and drug enforcement units, as well as civilian investigators.
The appointment of Bos as chief came as a surprise to many locals, especially in the wake of stories appearing in Colorado and Alaska media about his tenure as chief of the Brush Police Department during a controversial arrest and prosecution of two school district administrators charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation, which were later dismissed by a judge and the administrators reinstated.
Bos, during a town hall meeting in Juneau in September while interviewing for the JPD chief job, said “I am very comfortable with how our department handled it.”
Campbell said he’s had a chance to meet with Bos last week, as part of the deputy chief selection process, and is comfortable with the roles both will assume.
“I got to know him a little better, to hear his leadership styles of what his hope is to bring the police department and I feel very happy that he’s going to be here,” Campbell said. “I think it’ll be a great fit. Time will tell, but I think we are in a very good place for having a chief that going to be very supportive to the department.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
