By-the-book chief garners respect
Bad behaviour ‘bothers me to my core’
They call him Kemo.
Al Frederick got the nickname after he first shaved off his thinning hair two decades ago.
His fellow constables thought he looked like a cancer patient, and the nickname, intentionally misspelled, was born. “I’m growing it back,” Frederick said this week, rubbing the short, white fringe above his ears.
He said he made the decision to stop shaving his head when, soon after being named acting police chief, a leader of the local black community made a comment about him looking like a skinhead. Aghast, Frederick put away his razor for good.
Windsor’s new police chief clearly cares about public perception.
It’s one of the attributes that got him the job.
“He takes the reputation of the police service very seriously,” said Toni Scislowski, a member of the board that hired Frederick as the city’s top cop.
The police services board observed Frederick in action for nine months as acting chief before giving him the top post permanently.
“We were impressed,” Scislowski said.
Frederick has been positioning himself to become chief for years, having earned a Master’s of Business Administration with the goal of making himself a more attractive candidate for the position. He applied once before, when his predecessor Gary Smith got the job.
Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis described how Frederick “catapulted” into the deputy chief ’s job in 2007. He had been an inspector for only seven months, and without ever becoming a superintendent, beat out officers with more experience. Frederick came from the professional standards branch, the unit that investigates officer misconduct.
“He’s from PSB and it shows,” Francis said.
Frederick said he has investigated all kinds of officer misconduct, from criminality to using disrespectful language with members of the public.
“That behaviour bothers me to my core,” he said. “All of it — abuse of position, incivility or breaking the law.”
Retired Windsor police staff sergeant Neal Jessop has watched Frederick’s rise with admiration. Jessop was Frederick’s boss in the patrol division and later, the criminal investigation division. When Frederick was on the emergency services unit, his fellow officers named him team leader.
“He’s a thoughtful guy,” Jessop said. “You won’t find Al Frederick flying off the handle or making comments that are hurtful to people.”
“He’s an honourable man. I’m very, very pleased he became chief.”
Frederick, 51, had been poised to become a high school geography teacher when he was hired by Windsor as a police cadet in 1984.
He had grown up in Windsor, but moved with his family to Hamilton when he was 14 after his father, a millwright, lost his job in Detroit.
Frederick went to high school and university in Hamilton, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster. He returned to Windsor for teachers’ college, earning his Bachelor of Education, and had been offered a job at his old high school in Hamilton upon graduation.
He weighed his job offers and became a cop.
Frederick said he’ll call it a career in five more years. Surprised Frederick shared his retirement plans, Francis said the board took that into consideration as it appointed Essex OPP commander Rick Derus and former Windsor police Supt. Vince Power as deputy chiefs. “We put together a team.”
Frederick is usually the first of the brass at his desk in the morning. He starts sending out emails about 6 a.m. “It drives everyone nuts,” he said. He goes home to his wife, Simone, at 5 or 6 p.m.
When their two boys were young — they are now grown men — he coached or managed their hockey teams. Until he became acting chief, he was the longtime treasurer of the Sandwich Community Health Centre. In 2009, he was the chairman of the Special Olympics summer games held in Windsor. Special Olympics is a police charity, and Frederick has headed up the annual torch run fundraiser.
“I don’t watch a lot of TV,” he said. He reads three newspapers a day and has subscriptions to two business magazines. “I read a ton of case law,” he said, rhyming off new precedents set in human resources cases and the court’s latest take on the legality of police searches.
While talking about how he is writing a three-year business plan for the police service and is redrafting the promotional process, Frederick speaks wistfully of how he will spend his retirement years — camping and hiking with his wife.
“I want to spend more time on my feet than on my butt. I want to spend more time outside than indoors.”
For now, “I’ve got a job to do,” he said resolutely. He said the test of his success will be in “measurables” like the clearance rate of cases and the number of public complaints against police officers.
Last year, the Windsor Police Service, along with others in the province, was called out by Ontario’s ombudsman for failing to notify independent investigators in instances where officer misconduct is alleged. The Special Investigations Unit, which probes cases were people are seriously injured or killed by police officers or cases where a police officer is accused of sexual assault, has already noticed a difference in Windsor’s attitude toward watchdogs.
In an Oct. 19 letter, SIU director Ian Scott commented that the way Windsor is now willingly calling in the oversight body “appears to reflect the continuing progress the WPS is making under its new leadership with its obligations.”
Since Frederick became acting chief, Windsor has called the SIU 35 times. The watchdog agency said only 14 of the cases required its investigation. Ten of those cases have been cleared and four are outstanding.
In the past, “We never called anywhere near 35 times in a year,” Frederick said.
Frederick drafted sweeping reforms aimed at rehabilitating the force’s reputation after cases of police brutality and corruption, smuggling and theft. Frederick conjured up a plan called “project accountability” to exorcise the demons of the past.
“This is a very difficult piece of surgery he is engaged in,” said Julian Falconer, a Toronto lawyer suing Windsor police on behalf of a visually impaired endocrinologist who was beat up by a detective, then falsely charged with assault to cover up the crime.
As Dr. Tyceer Abouhassan’s case became the poster child for all that is wrong with Windsor’s police service, Falconer became an unlikely fan of Chief Frederick. A fan he remains.
“He has said all the right things and he has done all the right things,” Falconer said. “I have no reason to doubt him.”
The mayor makes no secret of the fact he was hoping to hire an outsider to lead Windsor’s troubled police force. But of the six candidates interviewed for the job, Frederick was clearly the best, Francis said.
“He was beat up more than any other candidate,” Francis said of the interviews Frederick endured. “He came out on top.”
The police services board was looking
“HE’S A THOUGHTFUL GUY. YOU WON’T FIND AL FREDERICK FLYING OFF THE HANDLE OR MAKING COMMENTS THAT ARE HURTFUL TO PEOPLE.” NEAL JESSOP
for a firm, confident hand. “He’s a very by-the-book type of individual,” Francis said of Frederick. “He has a really strong sense of right and wrong … And when something’s wrong, he addresses it.”
Soon after Frederick was named acting chief, video surfaced of an officer beating a young black man in the stairwell of a public housing building. Frederick swiftly suspended Const. Kent Rice and charged him with assault.
Last week, after receiving information that members of his tactical squad had stayed up all night drinking while away at training at the police college in Aylmer, Ont., Frederick held a same-day news conference offering details of the incident. He suspended the two leaders of the emergency services unit, sending what he calls “a strong message” through the ranks that misconduct of any nature will not be tolerated.
During an interview in his office this week, Frederick talked frankly about the incident and why he handled it in such a public way.
The last thing he wants is the media to accuse him of a coverup, he explained.
“I took a lot of heat from the association,” he said of his news conference.
Jason DeJong, president of the union representing police officers and civilians at the force, said he didn’t like how Frederick aired what was an internal issue.
“I’m hoping going forward we’re not going to see this over-reaction,” he said.
But, he said, he has always had a “respectful relationship” with Frederick.
Frederick pulls out his copy of the Police Act to explain how he handles officer discipline.
“Can you tell I use this a lot?” he said, running his fingers through the sticky notes protruding from it in all directions.
His department is no different than any other in the province, he says, taking the book in his hand as if it were a Bible.
“This exists because there is the presumption that misconduct will occur,” he said.
“When there is misconduct I will deal with it very quickly and efficiently.”
rederick has made a point of reaching out to community groups since he stepped into the top post. When the video of the white officer beating a black man surfaced, he already had a relationship with the Windsor and District Black Coalition, said president Marc Taylor.
Frederick invited the group to his news conferences on the issue and enlisted their help in finding the young black man in the video. Soon thereafter, the coalition started a website called Al Frederick for Windsor’s Police Chief.
“We make noise when bad things happen. We have to make noise for the good things, too,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he misjudged Frederick at first. He’s the one who made the skinhead comment to Frederick, and he couldn’t regret it more.
“He’s very kind-hearted,” said Taylor. “He has the community at heart.”