At a pair of open houses this week, the two finalists for Juneau’s new police chief answered questions from the public and gave presentations on community policing. City Manager Rorie Watt said he expects the city to make a decision early next week.
Derek Bos has been police chief in Eagle, Colorado since last October. He said he’s had his eye on Juneau for years after applying to chief positions in other Southeast Alaska towns.
“Juneau’s been the place we’ve been watching for about five years now, really, as an end goal,” he said.
The other finalist, Krag Campbell, has been with the Juneau Police Department since 2002. He said heʼs enjoyed gaining responsibility as he moved up through the ranks to lieutenant.
“At a chief level, I have the greatest amount of influence to make positive changes in the department,” Campbell said. “I really feel at this level, it’s like I’m in a position to work with the community, and really try to provide a police service that is best for the community.”
Campbell said that Juneau’s insular nature means that police are never really off duty, which leads to a sense of accountability.
“You can’t be anonymous, after taking off the badge,” Campbell said. “I can’t come here, police, take the badge off, drive an hour or two, and pretend that my actions don’t impact that community.”
Campbell said he would focus on addressing staffing problems in the department. Nearly a quarter of its positions were unfilled, as of last month. He said retaining staff is at the top of his mind.
“The hardest part is, you have officers who are working more and more and more to make up for those missing people,” Campbell said. “And they start getting burned out.”
Bos said his strategy for building relationships with communities is through churches and schools.
“As police, most of the people we interact with are not exactly friendly. They’re not always loving. But our faith-based communities is probably the one opportunity we have to interact with the most vulnerable people in our communities and build those relationships.”
He said the presence of officers in schools is a good recruitment strategy.
“We’re better off for it, for training and interacting with the next generation of police officers groups,” Bos said. “Let’s start with our kids. Keep them hooked, and maybe they’ll stay.”
Before he took the police chief job in Eagle, Bos was chief in Brush, Colorado, where he led an investigation in 2022 that targeted two Colorado school administrators who stored explicit photos of a minor as evidence in a sexting investigation. At the time, Colorado news outlets reported that such charges were rare, and the investigation divided the town.
Three audience members asked him about it.
“Colorado law is very black and white. You possess, you committed the crime. We don’t know what their intent was, we can’t prove what their intent was. But it was highly controversial, largely because of who those individuals were and community connections,” Bos said. “I was very comfortable with how our department handled it.”
A judge dismissed the charges, and the school board reinstated both administrators.
A third finalist, Joshua Kingsbury from New Mexico, dropped out earlier this week, citing personal reasons.
