When Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley announced his retirement in March, City Manager Craig Freeman said there would be a national search for his replacement. Turns out, Freeman found the leader he was looking for within the department, as 32-year OKCPD veteran Ron Bacy was named as the city’s 51st police chief this morning.
Since joining the department in 1992 as a Springlake Division patrolman in northeast OKC, the Del City High School and University of Central Oklahoma graduate rose through the ranks to become one of the department’s five deputy chiefs.
At a press conference announcing his newest role, Bacy said he never expected to become chief when he became an officer.
“I just hoped to make it through the training,” Bacy said, drawing laughter from those in attendance Friday at OKCPD headquarters.
He said developing relationships along the way helped prepare him to be the department’s leader.
“I think it’s not about what you’re walking into, but who you’re walking into it with,” he said. “It’s always going to be relationships. Relationships with the community and all the stakeholders and relationships with our employees because you can’t move forward unless you have well-established relationships.”
Bacy, 54, said being a Black police officer and now police chief has allowed him an important perspective, but he stopped short of calling himself a leader for OKC’s Black community.
“There isn’t one voice for African Americans,” he said. “I think the mistake that is often made is we misidentify leaders. You offend a lot of people when you select this person as a role model or spokesman for a group of people. I can tell you as an African American male that it impacts my job only in the sense that I’ve seen the world through two lenses.”
M.T. Berry, who served on the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority governing the jail from July 2020 through May 2023, became OKCPD’s first Black chief in 1998. In 2003, he transitioned to an assistant city manager role.
‘I know that Ron is a proven leader’
In his own remarks, Freeman said Bacy’s qualities as a leader made him a good choice to lead a department with about 1,200 officers.
“I think when I look at Ron, I know that Ron is a proven leader,” Freeman said. “He is committed and passionate about leading the dedicated men and women of this police department. And he is passionate about serving our community. When I think about Ron, and I think about the values of this organization — of the Oklahoma City Police Department — of integrity, compassion, accountability, respect and equity, Ron Bacy epitomizes those qualities. And I am grateful, and I appreciate his willingness to do this.”
In many ways, being named OKC police chief marks the culmination of an unlikely journey for Bacy, who talked about negative encounters he had with police officers as a teenager in Del City and later in college.
“I did have a negative contact on a couple of occasions, which shaped the perception in my head of law enforcement in general,” Bacy said. “I was 18 years old, and it was shortly after graduating from high school and prior to going to college. I honed in on something that Chief Gourley says all the time. There are thousands if not millions of encounters with law enforcement every day, and every encounter creates a story, and they tell those bad stories for generations. I was one of those people. But later in college, I had yet again another negative encounter with law enforcement. They were justified in approaching me in the manner in which they did, and again they realized I was not the person they were looking for, and they vindicated me.”
The college encounter would prove to be the spark that started his career in law enforcement.
“They saw something in the suspect interview that made them think that I had potential, and they recruited me to work, and I worked in the University of Oklahoma’s police department in a non-sworn position for two years before I got here,” Bacy said. “What sometimes can be seen as a bad start to something can have endless potential and possibilities for everyone.”
Freeman said the search process included hiring a consultant from the outside to evaluate candidates, but also input from community members.
“This consultant has been involved in selection processes for many law-enforcement executive searches throughout the country,” Freeman said. “They engaged multiple community leaders — a diverse group of community leaders — and worked with them to get feedback on what we want from our new police chief and what we want from the police department for the community going forward. So, we took that information and incorporated that.”
Some of the desired traits were things that Bacy had already demonstrated.
“These are just a few, but we wanted someone who could be strategic, who would be inspirational and a champion for continued improvement,” Freeman said.
Bacy has some tough issues to tackle. As a U.S. Department of Justice investigation lingers, OKC and OKCPD leaders have been working to improve responses to mental health crises that officers encounter in the field. In April, OKCPD released a revised mental health response protocol guide. Police interactions involving those experience mental health episodes can be volatile and have proven deadly.
In 2017, Muscogee Nation citizen Dustin Pigeon was fatally shot by OKCPD officer Keith Sweeney while Pigeon was threatening suicide. Sweeney was convicted of murder in the second degree. In 2020, Bennie Edwards, a 60-year-old Black man, died when he was shot in the back by OKCPD Sgt. Clifford Holman while in the throes of a mental health crisis. Holman was charged with manslaughter, but the charge was dropped by new District Attorney Vicki Behenna.
Following national protests over police violence and accountability in 2020, OKC has taken a series of steps to examine issues like alternate responses to mental health crisis calls.
“We recognize that behavioral health is not always an issue that is specific to the police department,” Bacy said. “We’re not always the subject matter expert, so we have to work with a large group of stakeholders who have a vested interest in providing the best outcomes. We have the Crisis Intervention Advisory Group that guides us as a city on resources, and we are also working on alternative response models. What we’re looking for in mental health is to provide the best possible response for each individual situation with the hope of the best outcome possible. But we’re not doing that alone.”
Others praise Bacy as OKC police chief choice
Mark Nelson, president of the Oklahoma City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 123, said he and Bacy have already discussed goals for the department’s officers.
“First of all, I’d like to congratulate Chief Bacy. Whenever a new chief is named, it presents an opportunity to think about how we can move forward together. I expect to work together on how we better serve our community, improve working conditions for officers and focusing on the crisis that is recruiting and retention in our profession,” Nelson said in a statement. “Chief Bacy and I have already discussed the areas we plan to focus on, and the FOP stands ready to work with him. He has an important job to do, and we hope cooperation can create positive outcomes for everyone involved.”
Tricia Everest, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s secretary of public safety, also praised Bacy.
“Chief Bacy is a trusted community leader and partner,” said Everest, who also serves as chairwoman of the board for Palomar, a family justice center and domestic violence services provider. “As deputy chief he oversaw the partnership between OCPD and Palomar, including the survivor focused design for our MAPS 4 building. He has an inherent ability to lead by example working with all stakeholders making our streets and homes safe.”
