New Bedford’s Acting Police Chief Paul Oliveira was picked to lead the department on a permanent basis on Wednesday.
Oliveira’s been in charge since former chief Joseph Cordeiro announced his retirement on April 25 at age 56.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell says violent crime in the city has dropped forty percent in the last six years, five of which saw Cordeiro in the top job and Oliveira as his deputy.
And he said he saw no need to interview candidates from outside the department to find a new chief.
“The thing that stands out about Paul is his judgment. He just has really good sense and that’s a hard thing to train somebody up on,” Mitchell said at a press conference announcing the appointment on Wednesday.
He said the decision is “based on [his] empathy, as well as good common sense, as well as his knowledge of the law and the knowledge of systems and the organization to make good decisions.”
Oliveira began his career in New Bedford in 1992 as a 22-year-old patrolman, quickly earning a promotion to detective in the department’s narcotics division.
Mitchell, a former federal prosecutor, said he worked with Oliveira on several criminal cases during this time.
Oliveira went on to lead the police department’s division of professional standards, which handles internal affairs investigations of other police officers. He became the department’s deputy chief in 2016.
Oliveira said the profession of policing has changed more in the past two years than throughout the rest of his career, as protests over several high-profile police killings of Black Americans broke out across the country.
“We will take the next steps to continue changing with the times and working together to keep the residents of the City of New Bedford safe,” Oliveira said on Wednesday.
At this point, the new chief said he has no specific reforms planned. Instead, he said he’s focused on enhancing the “great foundation that’s already been built within the department.”
Ben Berke is the South Coast Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org.
