DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — The process to hire a new police chief in the City of Decatur has been narrowed down to two candidates.
The city council spent the past week going through 18 selected applications.
On Monday, March 31, during the regular work session, the Decatur City Council announced a two-week hiring process to find the next chief of police.
The city has received 18 applicants for the job that were broken into groups: six that met the requirements, eight that did not receive the recommendations for the job, while four were considered on-hold candidates.
Council president Jacob Ladner said that city council leaders have spent the past week reviewing resumes and have narrowed the choice to two of the most qualified candidates to possibly lead the city police force.
“We are moving forward on interviewing Theo Smith and Tory Mack were the two candidates that were selected for interview. They are highly qualified people, but I thought we had a lot of good people and out of the 18, there were several highly qualified folks,” Ladner explained.
Ladner said that both Smith and Mack possess a minimum of 30 years of experience.
Mack is currently a captain and commander of the Special Enforcement Division in the Birmingham Police Department. Smith previously served as police chief and recently began work in the Jefferson County sheriff’s office.
“I their experience and leadership and we had good people recommend them to us,” said Ladner. “They had a lot of experience in leading police departments.”
Ladner said none of the 18 applicants were from the City of Decatur, but community activists say it’s time for the city to move forward
“We would need someone to actually come in and take that job,” said Terrance Adkins, co-founder of Standing in Power. “We need to see what they do with the job so that we can move forward as a city.”
Ladner told News 19 that the interview process for the candidates will be held publicly.
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