Building Relationships, Quality of Life Prime Issues for Police Chief Candidates

UPDATE: BCAM will replay this event at 7 p.m. tonight and this weekend on the government channel.

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Wednesday night's public interviews of the three finalists for Braintree Police Chief focused heavily on how the candidates would work on the department's relationship with the community and what programs or best practices they would implement to maintain and improve the town's quality of life.

A panel of town officials and one veteran law enforcement executive posed the same series of questions to each finalist. From an initial batch of 22 applicants, Mayor Joseph Sullivan and a committee selected Braintree Deputy Police Chief Russell Jenkins, Framingham Deputy Chief Craig W. Davis and Richard Rudolph, a Commanding Officer and Lieutenant in the Detective Bureau of the New York City Police Department.

Jenkins, a longtime veteran of the Braintree Police Department, went first and relied heavily on his administrative experience and his knowledge of the town's most pressing issues – namely connecting with an increasingly high-tech citizenship and dealing with the gang violence that can erupt when opposing members visit Braintree.

"We have to deal with that problem more aggressively," Jenkins said.

Rudolph has been with the New York City Police Department for 21 years. He said that he would bring a breadth of experience – including overseeing detectives in a community of 200,000 people – and specialization in human resources management to the top cop job in Braintree.

"I'm ready for the best and the worst that can be thrown at me," Rudolph said.

Davis, the Deputy Chief in Framingham, told the panel that he has consistently implemented creative programs to solve challenging problems in his hometown, including SWAT, jail diversion and DARE initiatives. His first priority if he became chief would be to get to know everyone in the community, Davis said.

"We are the folks that go into people's houses," he said. "We are the folks who see people at their worst."

For more on each of the candidates' questions and answers, click on their names below:

Russell Jenkins

Richard Rudolph

Craig W. Davis