Attorney General Eric Holder Selects Ronald Davis to
Lead Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced Ronald L. Davis as the director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).  Davis comes to COPS from the East Palo Alto Police Department, where he served as Chief of Police since 2005.  Davis also worked with the Oakland Police Department for 19 years, where he rose to the rank of Captain and served in assignments including Police Academy Director, Criminal Investigations Commander, Patrol Commander and Inspector General of the Police Department.

“Ronald Davis is an experienced leader, a proven innovator, and an accomplished and highly-respected law enforcement officer.  I am proud to welcome him to the Justice Department as Director of the COPS Office, where he will bring his considerable skills to bear in advancing our efforts to become smarter on crime,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.  “Chief Davis’ leadership has been instrumental in reducing crime in each of the communities he has served.  I look forward to working closely with Director Davis to keep building on the outstanding work of the COPS Office, and to support our law enforcement allies across the country.”

In East Palo Alto, Davis led an organizational reform and community-policing effort that increased public trust and confidence and achieved dramatic crime and violence reductions in a city once dubbed the murder capital of the United States.  Davis also partnered with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to implement a pilot parole-reentry program that provided programming and enforcement services and a job program with the California Department of Transportation.  The East Palo Alto Police Department was the first police agency in the state to operate a state-funded reentry program.  Return-to-custody rates dropped from more than 60 percent to less than 20 percent during this program.

Davis is the co-author of the Harvard University and National Institute of Justice (NIJ) publication, “Exploring the Role of the Police in Prisoner Reentry,” and the Department of Justice publication, “How to Correctly Collect and Analyze Racial Profiling Data: Your Reputation Depends on It.”  He is a contributing author to the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) publications, “Chief Concerns: The Use of Force,” and “Early Release of Prisoners and Its Impact on Police Agencies and Communities in California.”

Davis earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University (SIU) and completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The COPS Office is a federal agency responsible for advancing community policing nationwide.  Since 1995, COPS has awarded more than $14 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of approximately 125,000 officers and provide a variety of knowledge resource products including publications, training, and technical assistance.

For more information on COPS, please visit: www.cops.usdoj.gov.