The City of Tigard has a new police chief: Jamey McDonald. The name is probably familiar because McDonald has been the interim chief since the retirement of former Chief Kathy McAlpine on Jan. 1.
“It caught me off-guard,” McDonald said a week before he was scheduled to be sworn in on July 9. “I guess I had a six-month job interview. (City Manager Steve Rymer) said, ‘Let’s take off the “interim” title.’ I was shocked.
“It is pretty exciting and quite humbling to be asked to do this. And I have big shoes to fill.”
McDonald noted that McAlpine came to Tigard from the Tacoma Police Department, “which is completely different from Tigard. She had a different perspective coming from a big-city department, and the pace is much slower here, so she had the time to make changes.
“It was a great learning experience working with her, and I learned a lot from her. I called her after Steve made it official, and she said, ‘I figured it would happen at some point.’
“(Being a police chief) was never a goal or something I aspired to. After a few years here, I became a sergeant, and thought, it’s pretty cool to be a sergeant. Sergeants really have the ability to shape the department. They really form the culture of the department. You really have to have the sergeants on the same page as the command staff.”
McDonald explained the police department hierarchy: Above the patrol officers are the sergeants, who are the first-line supervisors and generally the highest-ranking people on duty outside of normal business hours, including nights and weekends. There also are three lieutenants overseeing the shifts and two division commanders, one in charge of operations, or everyone in uniform, and the other in charge of services that includes the detectives, property and evidence, records, and professional standards.
McDonald, who was previously a commander, is the first Tigard police chief to rise through the ranks internally from patrol officer to leader of the department. He was a patrol officer from 2001 to 2010, a sergeant from 2010 to 2014, and a lieutenant for 19 months before becoming a commander in July 2016.
“My job now is almost exclusively administrative – to keep things running and in the right direction,” McDonald said. “Lieutenants are out in the field regularly. Kathy loved to get out in the field. I do hope to continue a lot of what she was doing, focusing on transparency and accountability. The community has grown to expect it. There are not too many things that are secret in a police department.”
One practice McDonald plans to expand on is officer wellness. “We have to provide them with the tools to be the best version of themselves they can be, and a big part of this is mental health,” he said. “They see way more trauma than what the average person sees, and we need to support them in the ways that work best for them. For me, it’s fitness. I work out almost every day. For others, it might be meditation. The value the community gets back is huge when well-adjusted officers are making good decisions.”
Still, there might be room for changes under McDonald.
“I’ve got a few ideas that I’m not sure I’m ready to roll out yet,” he said. “We are already doing a great job with community outreach between Kelsey (Anderson, public information officer) and Maddie (Bauer, community engagement program coordinator). It’s really important how we engage with the public in Tigard. We are looking to build on that.
“People don’t call 911 when they’re having a good day. When they see police at community events, they are having a good day and like to interact with officers.”
National Night Out, held the first Tuesday in August, is a nationwide event when neighbors get together for barbecues and street parties with visits from first-responders and city officials, and this year’s event is Aug. 6. “We always have a lot of volunteers for this night,” McDonald said. “And we are holding another Police Department open house Sept. 21, and this year it will be in conjunction with the Public Works Department.
“We are planning to build new police and public works facilities at the intersection of Hunziker and Wall Street, and (Public Works Director) Brian Rager and I decided that we should start talking about it now. Public Works has held its own open houses, and we decided we might get cross-over visitors who might come for one and also attend the other if we hold them at the same time. And I want to get on a backhoe.”
When McDonald attends community events, he is usually swarmed by citizens who want to talk to him and ask him questions. “Maybe they saw something happen in their neighborhood and want to know about it, or they ask what an officer was doing at a certain incident,” he said. “And some people just want to say hello or ask a question such as what to do about a parked vehicle in their neighborhood that never moves.”
Looking back on his life, McDonald can see the chain of events that led to him becoming police chief. A native Oregonian, he grew up in Lake Grove and remembers his parents coming to the Prairie Market in Tigard. There was a fire station next door, and he would sit outside the market and watch the firefighters and trucks come and go and think that could be an exciting job.
McDonald earned a bachelor of science degree in geography and regional planning from Eastern Oregon University. “This was the early ‘90s, and it was hard to find a job,” McDonald said. “I couldn’t find anything so I got a job selling building materials. Law enforcement seemed like it would be a good fit for me because you help people.”
He decided to apply to be a police officer and did some research on local departments and talked to some friends in law enforcement. “Everyone said Tigard was a good department and pretty squared away,” McDonald said. “This was the fall of 2000, and I went to the (Tigard) senior center for testing (on general knowledge). They offered two or three tests that day, and there were 200 people in my session. There were four or five openings, and Tigard was doing a fair amount of hiring then. Out of 400 of us who were tested that day, they offered four of us a job.”
And that was the start of McDonald’s career in law enforcement. He went on to earn an executive certification from the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training and is a graduate of the 266th session of the FBI National Academy.
The Tigard Police Department has a maximum capacity of 77 sworn officers, and currently there are five openings. “I just realized we don’t have to hold open a position for a chief,” McDonald said. “We have had a lot of success hiring laterals (officers who come from other departments). A lot of it is due to the culture of our department. Two of them told me that. When they come here, they are really excited.”
On the home front, McDonald and his wife live near where he grew up; they have two grown children and two granddaughters whom they dote on.
“We are blessed by how great they are,” he said.