Newton's Next Police Chief To Be Sworn In

NEWTON, MA —Walpole Police Chief John F. Carmichael Jr. will be sworn in as chief of the Newton Police Department Monday, June 7.

Carmichael, a 53-year-old father of two, has spent the past five years as chief of the Walpole Police Department, where he lives and where he has served as an officer since 1996. Before that he was an officer and dispatcher in Medfield. In the late 1980s, he served in the US Army for three years.

He takes over from former Newton Police Chief Howard Mintz who came out of retirement to serve as interim chief when Police Chief David MacDonald resigned abruptly in June 2020, amid calls for police department reform across the nation and locally.

Who is Carmichael?

Carmichael said he's became interested in policing when he was a boy. The day his family moved to Medfield from Hyde Park, he and his dad drove past two police officers helping a man laying on the ground. The spirit of helping others stuck with him, he said.

"I remember thinking there were two police officers helping this person in need," he said. Then, around that same time, during a visit to Baker’s Pond he said he saw a police officer, helping a boy get a worm on a hook, cast his rod. "It was little things like that really had an impact on me, saw myself wanting to be like that person."

While Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said she was struck by the Walpole Police Department's culture of self-examination, improvement, responsiveness, transparency and accountability to concerns raised in his community, Carmichael said he was impressed with the direction Newton wanted to go.

About this job

Carmichael said when he saw the job description, for the police chief position here, it included a desire for building trust between police staff and the community and finding better ways to help people who are experiencing mental health crisis.

"All those things really attracted me," he said. "They're right in my wheelhouse, what I've been trying to do my whole career."

Carmichael said as he was applying for the job, he read through the pages of recommendations from the police reform task force.

"It was very impressive," he said. Although the mayor asked during a meeting in May he not go into details about his thoughts on it during the May meeting with reporters, he said he respected the work that was being done in the city on it.

"We need to engage groups like [Defund NPD] and discuss what’s going on. There’s too much talking at each other and not enough talking with each other about issues," he said. " I obviously don’t support defunding the police, I don’t think it’s a safe model for the community, but there are discussions that need to be made, and had."

He noted that policing has changed throughout his career.

"Things change, and you have to adapt with the change and if you don’t, we’re not going to be successful," he said. "Sometimes I think reform sounds like a scary word, but when you really look into the crux and the minutiae there are things that we do, sometimes we need to enhance it a bit more."

Outgoing Interim Chief Mintz, said he thought Carmichael was a good choice.

"I’ve been very impressed with what chief Carmichael has been saying about his strategic plan and implementing his mission," Mintz said.

The Newton police chief is among the highest paid city officials. The base salary would be between $200,000 and $215,000, according to the job posting.

What he steps into in Newton

Carmichael will be expected to work with the pages of recommendations coming from the mayor's task force to reimagine policing.

MacDonald's department faced criticism in 2020, when an officer drew his weapon on a Black man walking down the street with his wife. The college athletic director said he was surrounded by multiple police and at least one officer drew his weapon.

The police department apologized for that, saying a man wanted for murder was suspected of being in that same neighborhood. The suspect was also tall and Black and had facial hair and was arrested some five days later in the neighborhood. The mix-up garnered headlines across the region and criticism from many residents.

Then this January, Newton police officers shot and killed a man who was having a mental health crisis in Newton Highlands. Several officers are on leave pending an investigation determination.

In 2015, when Mintz was still chief, a Black Emerson professor disputed a Newton police officer's account of a speeding ticket, the ACLU got involved. The ticket was vacated.

Read more:

• Mayor Taps Retired Police Chief After Police Chief Abruptly Retires
• Newton Police Chief David MacDonald To Step Down
• 10 Complaints Against Newton Police In 2020

Watch city councilors interview Carmichael about his approach to leading the department: