Interim Chief of Police Joseph Chacon is one of three finalists for the top job at APD. (Photo by John Anderson)

Austin’s Interim Chief of Police Joseph Chacon is one of three finalists for the top job at the Austin Police Department, along with Dallas PD Assistant Chief Avery Moore and Los Angeles PD Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides.

City Manager Spencer Cronk announced his picks on Friday, after his original shortlist of seven candidates (out of 46 applicants) were interviewed by panels of “community stakeholders, law enforcement partners, and [city] executives” in July. “I am confident these finalists will help the City of Austin cultivate relationships with our community, accomplish the City Council’s goals, and continue the progress of reimagining public safety in Austin,” said Cronk in a city news release.

Next week, the three will face the public at two sessions, Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 18-19, both from 7–8:30pm at Palmer Events Center (in-person capacity is limited to 100 people), to be broadcast and streamed online in English and Spanish on ATXN and on KAZI 88.7 FM. Aug. 18 is also when Austinites can voice their own feedback about the three choices online at speakupaustin.org; Cronk “hopes to announce a new Chief of Police before the end of September.”

Chacon, who’s been interim chief since the March retirement of Brian Manley, was formerly an assistant chief overseeing patrol and investigations; Moore, a 30-year DPD veteran, is also in charge of investigations in the Big D. Tingarides, a 26-year LAPD veteran and L.A. native, commands the city’s new Community Safety Partnership Bureau, a “relationship-based public health approach” to policing in L.A.’s “most underserved and challenged communities,” according to her bio. Both she and Moore are Black; Chacon, the only Spanish-speaker on Cronk’s shortlist, was APD’s highest-ranking officer of color.