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{"id":9915,"date":"2025-06-04T22:04:43","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T22:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/2-finalists-emerge-in-capitol-police-chief-search\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T22:04:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T22:04:43","slug":"2-finalists-emerge-in-capitol-police-chief-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/2-finalists-emerge-in-capitol-police-chief-search\/","title":{"rendered":"2 finalists emerge in Capitol Police chief search"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The secretive board overseeing the Capitol Police has narrowed its search down to two choices for the next chief of the department: former Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan and former Secret Service Director Randolph \u201cTex\u201d Alles, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. The people said a final decision was expected imminently.<\/p>\n<p>Before serving as interim in Phoenix, Sullivan had stints at the Baltimore Police Department as deputy commissioner of compliance and deputy commissioner of operations, according to his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/michael-sullivan-97ab3739\/\" target=\"_blank\">Linkedin profile<\/a>. He\u2019s also been a deputy chief at the Louisville Metro Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>Alles, a former Marine Corps major general, served as the director of the Secret Service during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term before departing the role in April 2019 as part of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/04\/08\/secret-service-director-leaves-trump-administration-1261442\" target=\"_blank\">department-wide shakeup.<\/a> Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/04\/08\/us\/politics\/randolph-alles-secret-service.html?action=click&amp;module=Top%20Stories&amp;pgtype=Homepage\" target=\"_blank\">derisively referred<\/a> to Alles as \u201cDumbo,\u201d the New York Times reported at the time. Since then, he served in a senior role at the Department of Homeland Security until March of this year, according to Alles\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/randy-alles-6a0bb73b\/details\/experience\/\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, the Capitol Police Board appears poised to go outside the department for a chief yet again, passing over Sean Gallagher, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/06\/02\/congress\/sean-gallagher-capitol-police-chief-00380698\" target=\"_blank\">interim head of the department<\/a> and assistant chief, who has been with the department for more than two decades and served in a wide variety of roles across the agency. Gallagher was part of the leadership team during the Jan. 6 insurrection, weathered a no-confidence vote by the union and eventually worked to help stabilize the agency after a time of tectonic tumult.<\/p>\n<p>The union signaled it was opposed to Gallagher&#8217;s selection as interim chief, with union chair Gus Papathanasiou saying in a Tuesday statement: \u201cWe\u2019re astounded the Board would even consider [Gallagher] for the role. The Capitol Police force cannot continue to see problem officers \u2018fail upwards\u2019, winning promotions instead of demotions commensurate with their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Capitol Police Board is composed of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Jennifer Hemingway, House Sergeant-at-Arms William McFarland and Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin. They are tasked with replacing former chief Thomas Manger, who retired last month after four years at the helm.<\/p>\n<p>The board\u2019s potential choice of another outside candidate, instead of promoting internally within the Capitol Police ranks, signals residual doubts about those who were in leadership roles for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re going to have to learn about our mission, the uniqueness of it, but the structure of oversight as well, and there is a learning curve there,\u201d Manger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/05\/28\/thomas-manger-capitol-police-exit-interview-00371808\" target=\"_blank\">said in a recent interview<\/a>, talking about anyone who comes to lead Capitol Police from an outside law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n<p>Others who had been in the mix included external and internal candidates from the force, including former Deputy Chief JJ Pickett, Deputy Chief Tom Loyd, and Assistant Chief Jason Bell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The secretive board overseeing the Capitol Police has narrowed its search down to two choices for the next chief of the department: former Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan and former Secret Service Director Randolph \u201cTex\u201d Alles, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. The people said a final decision was expected [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}