Vancouver Police Chief James McElvain speaks Monday, March 18, 2019, in Vancouver, Wash.
Molly Solomon / OPB
The head of the Vancouver Police Department will retire in June, the city of Vancouver announced Thursday morning, creating another leadership shakeup among the largest police agencies in Southwest Washington.
James McElvain, who has been in law enforcement for more than three decades and took over the department in December 2013, will retire June 30.
City spokesperson Tim Becker said in a statement the city plans to find its next chief through a national search. The six-month window before McElvain’s departure will help “ensure a smooth transition,” Becker wrote.
“I entered law enforcement — in part — to be a change agent, and I feel I’ve accomplished that,” McElvain said in a prepared statement. “I’ll be leaving with a hopeful and positive vision for the department.”
The statement doesn’t make clear what McElvain plans to do in retirement, though he also works as an adjunct professor at Washington State University Vancouver.
McElvain’s move means that by the end of the year both Vancouver police and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office will be under new leadership. Sheriff Chuck Atkins is not seeking reelection.
The changes come amid a turbulent time for policing in Southwest Washington, following social justice protests that erupted across the nation in following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis; and, locally, the October 2020 killing of 21-year-old Kevin Peterson Jr. by Clark County deputies.
“During the last two years, he has been a steady, compassionate leader through some of the most tumultuous times for policing in a generation,” City Manager Eric Holmes said of McElvain in a statement. “His commitment to working with the community to increase transparency, accountability, and equity while improving police and community relations and reducing police use of force incidents has been exemplary.”
McElvain’s agency has not been spared from criticism, both internally and from outside groups. During his tenure, Vancouver police have been involved in about 18 shootings, most of them fatal.
One particularly violent stretch occurred in winter 2019, when Vancouver police were involved in four shootings in a five-week span. Three people died: 16-year-old Clayton Joseph, 43-year-old Carlos Hunter and 29-year-old Michael Pierce.
The city then commissioned an independent audit. The Police Executive Research Forum looked at a three-year window of Vancouver police data and found use of force had risen 65%, but couldn’t explain why. The group recommended more than 80 policy changes.
Alarmed that most shootings involved people of color or people with behavioral health issues, several civil rights organizations petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice in November to investigate Vancouver police, as well as the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Morale has taken a hit under a difficult “political climate,” McElvain recently told Vancouver officials. In August, he said the department has been strained in its ability to hire and retain police. He said his roughly 230 sworn officers are undermanned to serve the growing city.
“These are certainly some very interesting and challenging times for policing,” McElvain said. “Nationally and regionally speaking, this past year’s events certainly rival those of the 1960s.”
In the announcement of his retirement, city officials lauded McElvain for a number of successes. The statement acknowledged his push for the independent audit, as well as establishing an in-house records division.
The announcement also said McElvain “improved working relationships” between top brass and the agency’s unions. Rank-and-file officers and command staff each have their own unions.
Under McElvain, Vancouver police have also gotten closer to deploying body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras. The agency is currently testing different vendors.
Local civil rights leaders on Thursday spoke optimistically about McElvain’s impending retirement. The chief, they said, often made good-faith efforts to work with groups despite their differing views on how policing should change.
Jasmine Tolbert, of the NAACP’s Vancouver chapter, said McElvain regularly attended the group’s meetings and willingly shared his professional insights.
“I think that Chief McElvain as a person was/is on a great racial equity journey himself,” Tolbert said. “I’m hoping that the pieces of his legacy he leaves behind … is an opportunity the next chief can pick up.”
Ed Hamilton Rosales, of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Southwest Washington, noted that Vancouver police shot and killed a Latino man on Sunday. Vancouver police said in a statement the man confronted officers with a knife during a 911 response. Four officers remain on paid leave.
Hamilton Rosales said he felt that making police safer for communities of color requires greater change than a new chief. He pointed to new laws passed in Washington state designed to curb excessive use of force and biased policing.
“I think personally he came here with the best intentions and met the same wall of resistance that everybody else has gone through,” Hamilton Rosales said, adding he hoped the next chief would be a person of color.