A chief’s challenge

Reporter Scott Thomas Anderson was well equipped to write the profile of incoming Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn that you’ll find in these pages. (See “The good cop,” page 15.) While Hahn was on an ambitious mission to overhaul the Roseville Police Department, Anderson worked as a reporter for the local paper. He witnessed the events described here up close, and had the opportunity to get a read on Hahn, who says that job taught him what it means to be chief.

In an in-depth interview with Anderson last week, Hahn told a story that reveals the ways growing up in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood forged in him a kind of stoic determination. Talking about his 23 years on the force in his hometown, he tells how he came to understand police work as something that holds everyone involved accountable.

Hahn returns to an agency and a city in crisis. At its heart is an inescapable fact: In Sacramento, as in most of the nation, African-Americans find themselves confronted by hostile forces, centuries old, that do violence to their communities.

Some months ago I attended a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, which tells the 200-plus-year history that led to the criminalization and mass-imprisonment of America’s black population. It is a powerful call to action. The screening was sponsored by the American Leadership Forum, an organization that brings together business and community leaders to encourage relationship, diversity and service. Daniel Hahn is a senior fellow with ALF.

There are many reasons to believe Chief Hahn will succeed here, and more reasons to hope he can.