Sheppard bids a final farewell

On Wednesday morning, two days before James Sheppard's 33 years in police work comes to an end, the Rochester police chief took an hour out of his farewell tour to talk to a group of seventh-graders at Helen Barrett Montgomery School on Seneca Avenue.

"What do you want to be?" he asked them, then made them say their career goals out loud — a race car driver, a chef, an educator.

"Now don't let anyone else tell you what you can and can't be," Sheppard said. "You decide."

"And when I'm gone, I want you to remember this, I came here for one reason: Because I want you to be successful."

It was a fitting complement to his final days: Connecting with kids and engaging the community was the hallmark of Sheppard's three-year stint as the city's chief law enforcement officer, from the time of his first meeting with community leaders back in 2010.

His outreach — and his insistence that the rank-and-file move toward a philosophy of "Policing in the Spirit of Service" — earned him both praise and ridicule from on-again/off-again supporters and critics, and Sheppard said he's learned to accept both for their ephemeral nature.

For Sheppard, a self-effacing extrovert whose 90-hour work weeks rivaled those of his longtime friend, mentor and one-time fellow police chief, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, his career ends full circle today, just as he dreamed it would from his first day in the academy.

"In the end, I don't think that people truly understand what they are losing here when he walks out the door," said Deputy Chief Mike Wood, whom Sheppard hired to be his head of operations and who many have said has applied for the job to replace him.

A national search is now underway to find that replacement.

"Shoes are always tough to fill. The machine runs on. Names change, people change. The place will go on. We know that, but the true effect of who he is and what he's brought here — that will be tough to match. Bottom line."

Mismatched pair

As patrolmen in the 1980s and later supervisors and partners in the tactical and SWAT sections of the RPD, Duffy and Sheppard were a very close — if physically mismatched — pair.

"We used to talk about problems in the department and what we would do if we were ever in the position to do so," Duffy said this week. "We had some great conversations — you spend eight hours a night in the car with somebody, five nights a week for weeks and years, you really get to know somebody."

One thing was always a constant in those car rides.

"I drove," said Duffy, who, at 6-feet, 5-inches, insisted he stay behind the wheel while the 5-foot 6-inch tall (in his police boots) Sheppard sat in the Ford's LTD's bench passenger seat ("like I was sitting in a Barcalounger").

"Otherwise my knees would have been embedded in my chest," Duffy joked. "That was one thing that was always an imperative in our relationship."

Duffy, who was a few years senior to Sheppard in the department, groomed him for bigger things, Sheppard said.

"He saw in me what I maybe hadn't seen in myself," said Sheppard, one of 12 children raised in Springwater, Livingston County, mainly by his father, a military veteran, after his mother died. "He helped me prepare for the tests, he gave me the confidence to excel."

Duffy's tutelage of and close personal relationship with Sheppard made it all that much harder in 2006 for the newly elected mayor to pass over his good friend for a job he wanted him to have.

Duffy conducted a national search for his next police chief and three candidates emerged: Sheppard; another longtime Duffy friend and former acting chief, Tim Hickey; and the police chief in Laurel, Md., David Moore.

Duffy wanted Sheppard, but he was convinced by his transition team that an outsider, a person with no strings attached to other members of the department or the community, would be a better choice.

Moore was hired, and Sheppard departed for the Rochester School District, where he would soon become a candidate for the top job in the Savannah Police Department. He didn't get the job.

"I never thought I'd come back" to the RPD, Sheppard said.

Then he got a call from Duffy in November 2010.

Full circle

When Sheppard was abruptly named to replace Moore that year, his career had come full circle.

At his first meeting with religious and community leaders at the Public Safety Building, Sheppard said his goal would be to improve relationships both within and outside the Police Department.

In the following months he implemented his "Serving in the Spirit of Service" campaign, which would include evaluating officers' performance based in part on their community outreach efforts. A Police Activities League, started under Moore, was strengthened to unprecedented levels. Awards and other acknowledgments for officers and civilians were created. A "Twitter Town Hall" and other engagement vehicles were started.

"He's incredibly popular because he doesn't just talk-the-talk, he walks-the-walk," said Wood. "From day one, he's talked about this being a people business, inside and outside."

"He made it OK for officers to be out there volunteering in the community, and look what's happened — we have had to turn officers away because we have so many. Those are huge things that I hope will continue. It will pay long-term dividends."

Wood, who recalled working for Duffy and telling other staff members then that they had to keep Duffy's schedule clear to allow him family and other personal time, said Sheppard was the same way.

"He ran hard for three years," he said of Sheppard. "He went every bit as hard (as Duffy), or harder."

Sheppard's tenure had its share of embarrassing episodes, including the arrest of a social activist for videotaping an arrest, the public acknowledgment that his officers were breaking department protocol by fixing parking tickets and the ticketing of cars in apparent retaliation against a group of activists.

There were more serious cases such as officer-involved shootings, officers being injured in gunfire and traffic accidents, and allegations of police brutality, but the office ultimately was not tagged with any major scandal.

As Warren's push to oust Mayor Thomas Richards intensified, though, lines started to form between Warren's camp and its police chief. Warren and her supporters complained that Sheppard was not acknowledging their suggestions regarding police coverage.

Sheppard's career path seemed to be coming to an inevitable end as Warren showed little support of keeping him on as chief.

Sheppard's daughter, Tamara Sheppard, who is a social worker at the Helen Barrett Montgomery School, where her father spoke this week, said the political season was a tough one to watch.

"I'm so, so proud of him. I really am," she said, holding back some tears. "This political season has just been so crazy with negativity. I love his resilience, that's been the hardest for me. I don't know what he's made out of, but no matter how many daggers or whatever, he's just been able to brush it off and keep going."

But what Warren is doing is "consistent with what every mayor who comes into office has to do," Duffy said.

"It's not that you come in and don't like someone, or don't respect them. The buck stops at her desk and she wants to ensure that she gets people around her that she can count on."

Duffy says he now empathizes with Mayor-elect Lovely Warren's current situation: Since her first choice for chief, Cedric Alexander, opted to stay in DeKalb County, Ga. — enticed to stay by a promotion and pay raise — Warren has decided to conduct a national search for a chief.

The search

Warren's national search will likely take several months and cost a few thousand dollars in advertising and transportation fees to bring potential candidates to town for interviews.

Those across the country who aspire to become a police chief typically have a close eye on the job market, and there will likely be a number of outside candidates vying for the job, which pays about $128,000 per year.

Wood declined to say whether he has officially applied, and Warren's interim chief, Deputy Chief of Administration Michael Ciminelli, did not return a request for comment.

Likely, the list will be pared down to a few candidates who will be brought to Rochester and interviewed. No time line has been set to name a new chief.

Duffy said the pros and cons of candidates inside and outside of the department are clear: Outsiders have no allegiances; insiders know the department better.

"Very simple," Duffy said. "An outsider has no baggage."

Warren has said she wanted someone like Alexander, who combined an education in psychology with a career in law enforcement and who earned a reputation in his nine months as Rochester's interim chief in 2005 as tough on crime and strict on following rules within the department.

Whatever happens with the search, Sheppard will find himself watching from afar, and the school setting he found himself in on Wednesday might be a foreshadowing.

He says he plans to travel for the first month of his retirement and to relax at home for the second, but that he doesn't have specific plans for a second career.

"I really want to do something I have some passion for. I'd really like to teach — elementary or college, I don't know, I'm just drawn to that. Like this," he said, pointing to a group of kindergarten students making their way into the gymnasium.

The seventh-graders had left by then, but he said he hopes they remember what he said — that focusing on a dream and speaking it out loud makes it real.

"Here's the thing about setting a goal," he had told the students. "If you set a goal and you make it in your own mind, and you speak it out loud, everything you do can help take you to that goal."

On his first day in the academy, 33 years earlier, he was asked to do that.

"We had to give our name and our career goal," Sheppard said. Some of his fellows cadets said they wanted to work in forensics, somebody else wanted to do SWAT.

"What do you think I said?" he asked the students, most of whom guessed correctly.

"I wanted to be the chief."

JHAND@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/jonhand1

Interim Police Chief Michael L. Ciminelli

Mayor-elect Lovely Warren has named Deputy Chief of Administration Michael L. Ciminelli her interim chief to take over for James Sheppard beginning today, when Sheppard begins a vacation leading up to his official retirement Dec. 31.

He was formerly commanding officer of the Special Operations Division, commander of Patrol Division West, a sergeant, a homicide investigator and a patrol officer.

Ciminelli served as chief of the Elmira Police Department from 1996 to 2002 and was an assistant district attorney for the Monroe County District Attorney's Office from 1988 to 1991.

He holds a law degree from the University of Buffalo Law School and is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and Monroe Community College.

Ciminelli is a native of Rochester, growing up on the city's west side in the 19th Ward.

Source: Biographical information provided by Deputy Chief of Administration Michael L. Ciminelli.