Norristown police chief finalists - including New Britain Police chief - answer community questions

Norristown residents heard from three finalists vying to lead the police department on Thursday as municipal officials continue the process to find a replacement.

Moderated by Widener University professor Marina Barnett, the candidates participated in a morning and evening session where they answered a series of questions guided by input from area residents that ranged from restoring trust to community engagement.

“It’s really important you have a say in the future of the police department,” said Lansdale Police Chief Michael Trail.

The tenuous relationship between the administration and former Chief Jacqueline Bailey-Davis culminated with her resignation in December 2024. Lt. James Angelucci has been leading the department on an interim basis for the past seven months.

There were 51 candidates who submitted applications for the role as candidate interviews were conducted between late April and late May, according to Municipal Administrator Leonard Lightner. The pool was narrowed to 10 individuals before crafting the three-person short list. All three finalists have ties to the area.

“What makes these candidates stand out is their experience, their willingness and wanting to be here in Norristown and their vision for what they have for the police department and for the community,” Lightner told The Times Herald.

Mark Benjamin, 57, of Fairfield Township, New Jersey, a Norristown native and retired captain of the Atlantic City Police Department; Richard Clowser, 56, of Harleysville, the former deputy chief of the Norristown Police Department and current New Britain Township police chief; and Trail, 54, of Lansdale, hoped to take her place.

“There is a need and a cry for leadership, and … there’s no reason that I can go somewhere else, and gain all this information and let my home fall,” Benjamin said. “We cannot. I will not allow that on my watch. My blood, sweat and tears is in these streets.”

Bailey-Davis was originally selected in December 2023 and sworn in as the municipality’s first Black female police chief. A previous Philadelphia police staff inspector, Bailey-Davis was hired to fill the role left vacant by former Chief Derrick Wood, who’d resigned after a year on the job. This will be the third police chief vacancy in three years.

“We can do better than what was done over the past three years, and I can do that,” Clowser said.

Former police chief eventually leaves Norristown

Cracks in the relationship between the municipality and head of law enforcement appeared during September 2024 council work session where Norristown resident Yvonne Platts made an impassioned call for the reinstatement of Bailey-Davis’ space in the municipal parking lot, characterizing removal of the space as “a flagrant example of sexism and racism.”

Former Councilman Tom Lepera told The Times Herald following the Sept. 17, 2024 work session that signs designating parking spots for several municipal leaders were removed to allow more space for constituent parking.

Public support of the police chief carried on throughout subsequent meetings, and the strained relationship between Bailey-Davis and the municipality came to a head after a heated public comment period in November 2024. Bailey-Davis was then placed on administrative leave and offered a severance package weeks before she stepped down from her post.

The police force declined throughout Bailey-Davis’ tenure, with 11 vacancies identified at one point prior to her departure. The department recorded 58 “sworn personnel,” with 40 uniformed officers and 18 leading law enforcement officials as of December 2024.

The chief is responsible for overseeing “approximately 70 police officers and 30 civilian staff,” a spokesperson said, in a municipality with 36,075 residents as of July 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. The department has “52 deployable officers” as of late June, according to Angelucci.

“I know the people that are down there. They know me. They know that they’re going to have to work hard. That’s how we changed the culture of the police department before and I could do it again. Give me the opportunity to do it again,” Clowser said of his 28-year tenure on the police force.

Norristown has also seen periods of rising crime in recent months, with the municipal police force averaging 3,500 calls per month, Angelucci said during an April 1 council meeting.

Benjamin, who spent nearly three decades at the New Jersey agency, noted the conflict that took place within the municipality as he progressed through the interview process.

“We’ve come across statements like there’s an internal cry for leadership. There’s an external cry for leadership,” Benjamin said. “The previous heads of the top organization didn’t stay. We want stability. We have [a] massive exodus from officers for what was considered a failure of leadership.”

“Let me say this, a head doesn’t control the whole body. A head takes care of its body so it can take care of its community,” he continued.

While acknowledging Benjamin’s words, Lightner underscored “every department has struggles internally.”

“But that’s what’s happened when you look over the years of what they’ve gone through,” he said. “They’ve gone through several different chiefs over the last five years, people coming in and out. So stability is important to them.”

Public input solicited amid transparency concerns

The municipality solicited input from area residents in a survey issued earlier this year related to the police chief search. Community, communication and transparency were main concerns from survey respondents as officials strived to invite community participation into proceedings.

“They do have a say. This will be an important role in the community,” Lightner said. “That chief has to work well with me, but also work well with the community. We want the community to understand we take what they said serious[ly]. All their questions, all their concerns we’ve put in today’s sessions, and we’re also taking that into consideration in our final decisions.”

The effort did not go unnoticed by dozens of people who participated in the two sessions. When asked why they attended, Norristown resident Leigh Peoples said “because this is my town.”

“I’m not born and raised here, but I’ve been here for 32 years, and I want to see who the candidates [are] and [be] able to voice my opinion on who I feel would be best for us,” she said, adding “I think it was a great idea that they finally asked us the people who live here what we feel.”

Norristown resident Gwendolyn “Baby Cheryl” Haines stressed “this is really important.”

“Everything here is broken. It’s been broken for a long time. We need someone with integrity who can’t be bought out,” Haines said.

Trail, serving as Lansdale police chief for eight years, stressed the importance of taking a personalized approach to policing in Norristown and urged issuing further surveys to gauge issues of importance to area residents.

“If we’re trying to provide public safety services for Norristown, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s unique to the individual communities, and we need … those partnerships,” Trail said.

Clowser attested his longstanding relationship with the law enforcement agency and institutional knowledge of the community made him the right fit.

“I was not born here, but I grew up professionally. I spent 28 years of my life serving the streets of Norristown,” adding “I’ve actually operationalized the ideas that some of the others have said today in Norristown.”

Municipal officials faced public scrutiny and calls for increased transparency surrounding the saga involving the former police chief and in the months that followed. Benjamin aimed to demonstrate transparency on his own terms in his response to area residents.

“Now I want you all to understand transparency does not mean that, as the chief of police, I will stand before you and give you every detail of an investigation that will jeopardize that investigation if the suspect has not been called, or even if the suspect has been caught and has not been tried,” he said. “That I won’t do. But I will give you everything that’s necessary for you to understand that your community is now safe from that particular incident.

“My vision of leading police for the Norristown Police Department is one, constitutionally led, two, culturally competent, three, trustworthy, four service oriented, five transparent, with an emphasis on procedural justice,” Benjamin said.

The trio of candidates agreed on community policing. Clowser recalled essential strategies implemented during his time on the Norristown police force under the leadership of former Chief Mark Talbot. He said that cultivating relationships with community leaders in faith and nonprofit spaces were essential.

“So I know what to do to build trust again with the Black and brown community of Norristown. I know what it takes, and I’m willing to do the work,” he said.

‘Evaporation of public trust’

Candidates also identified instances of fractured relationships between community members and law enforcement amid nationwide tensions.

“We went through a massive disintegration of an evaporation of public trust following the murder of George Floyd,” Trail said, calling it a “seminal moment in our profession.”

Floyd’s death rocked the nation that responded with protests in cities and towns, including several taking place in Montgomery County. “We were standing there in solidarity with the protesters denouncing unconstitutional policing,” Trail said of the Lansdale demonstration.

“Black and brown communities have an angst when it comes to trusting the police officers. If we don’t admit that truthfully, we’re doing a disservice to everybody in this room,” Benjamin said.

Areas in and around Norristown have seen escalating immigration enforcement actions as part of directives issued by President Donald Trump since the start of his second term.

“I don’t care what the politics are on the issue, people need to be treated with dignity and respect, and what I’ve seen going on some of these videos in different states is not professional. There’s a way to go about immigration enforcement,” Trail said.

“The Lansdale Police Department does not engage in immigration enforcement activities. We’ll do what’s legally obligated to be done, and … we’ll keep the peace,” he continued. “But I’ve already told my officers that the Immigration Customs Enforcement shows up, and they start abusing our residents, as guardians of our community, we’re to step in.”

Clowser recalled witnessing similar immigration-related incident in 2016.

“Some vehicles would show up,” Clowser said. “Some people would jump out with all kinds of military vests or whatever. They would go up on a porch of a Hispanic house, and they [would] take people away.”

“Who do you think got blamed for that? It wasn’t us,” he continued. “So we had to build trust again with the Latino community to make them feel safe. We need them to report crimes to us. We need them to trust us.”

Trail emphasized that impactful policing begins with its officers. He added that it’s crucial to ensure departments have good people and serve as a “community engagement officer.”

“What we need to do in our recruitment and hiring process is that we need to find good people to be police officers in our communities,” he said. “We can train them to do the job … but you have to be a good person coming in the door. If you’re not, you’re not going to serve the community.”

While a hiring date has not been set for a permanent replacement, Lightner stressed that “we are pushing to get this done by the end of summer, absolutely.”

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