OAKLAND — Anne Kirkpatrick has a knack for stepping into embattled police departments. She sees herself as a “change agent” — a consummate outsider able to step in and steer sinking ships away from the abyss.

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Reward rises for West Oakland fatal shooting information It’s a trait she will need Monday, when she officially takes the helm of the Oakland Police Department and begins to chart a new course for a department that has been under federal oversight for the past 14 years and was most recently rocked by a sex scandal involving an underage sex worker and several police officers. The chaos resulted in a carousel of police chiefs, with the department leaderless since June.

The daunting task of rebuilding community trust and bringing the department into compliance with its 2003 settlement agreement stemming from the Riders police-misconduct scandal is not lost on Rashidah Grinage, the coordinator for the Coalition for Police Accountability, which advocated for the establishment of the city’s new police commission.

“She needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Grinage said. “She will have to tackle all of these issues simultaneously.”

Past setbacks aside, recent snafus at the department will keep Kirkpatrick busy in her first few days and weeks, Grinage said. She pointed to the sudden reversal of a directive asking police officers to report building code violations in the wake of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36, as well as the gunman shot and killed earlier this month despite neighbors calling the police twice in the week before the incident to report the man acting erratically and shooting at a car window.

“The delay in the police’s response is something that a lot of people are wanting answers about,” Grinage said. “Those are the two front-burner instances that I’ll be looking to see how she handles, along with her posture toward the police union.”

Kirkpatrick is no stranger to stepping into departments in tumult. As the police chief in Spokane, Washington, she inherited a police force under intense scrutiny following the death of Otto Zehm inside a convenience store in 2006. Brought into the department to implement community-oriented policing reforms, Kirkpatrick was stymied by the recession, which forced her to cut her department by around 10 percent, said former Spokane City Councilman Mike Allen.

“We couldn’t get it implemented because of budget constraints,” he said.

Her experience in Spokane was not unlike what she anticipates she will face in Oakland: a difficult balancing act, she said Friday.

“I was the chief in charge when all the surgery had to occur, during all the hurt and the pain,” Kirkpatrick said. “But the hurt and the pain, I hope, was done and completed by the time I left so there could be healing.”

After working in Spokane, Kirkpatrick served as an FBI instructor to high-ranking law enforcement officials, and was most recently tapped by the Chicago Police Department to implement reforms in the wake of the fatal 2014 police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

She left the department to take the Oakland position before the fruits of her labor could be realized, said Dean Angelo, head of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago. The Department of Justice only came out with its recommendations in January, he said.

But, in an earlier interview, Lori Lightfoot, the president of the Chicago Police Board, told this newspaper Kirkpatrick worked hard on “transforming the way the department thinks strategically about training” and lauded her short but effective time within the department.

A Memphis native, Kirkpatrick, 57, never dreamed of becoming a police officer when she grew up. Drawn by an advertisement in a local newspaper, she applied, entering the second class of new recruits within the department to admit women. That was 1982, and she was very much a novelty within the uniformed patrol division, she said.

It was no surprise to her that some male colleagues did not want her on their calls, but she also found mentors within the department who took her under their wings, she said.

“There were certainly men who didn’t want to work with me, but that was OK,” Kirkpatrick said. “I did not challenge that. … I was not there to be a burr under their saddle.”

Her unflappable demeanor allowed her to distinguish herself within the department, where she took on a part-time assignment teaching criminal proceedings at the state police academy. While in Memphis, Kirkpatrick earned a graduate degree in counseling and psychology, taking night classes while working full time.

Later, she moved to Washington to go to law school, all while continuing her graveyard patrol shifts. Coupled with an undergraduate degree in business, Kirkpatrick said she’s been able to put all of her academic training to use as a police chief.

“You’re actually hitting on all three pistons,” she said.

Now entering her eighth police department, including the fourth where she has held the title of chief, Kirkpatrick said she has learned a lot about leadership along the way. She’s looking to put that experience to work in Oakland, where she said her first priority will be reducing violence in the city.

She’s also looking to continue community-oriented policing programs, including the city’s Ceasefire program, a data-driven strategy to reduce gun violence by working closely with the people most likely to commit homicides and shootings.

“My goal has always been to come in with the ambition of taking the police departments to the Super Bowls — you know, to see all that wonderful talent and to create the team and to move forward,” she said. “Sometimes, the pain of the past can be very difficult, but the bottom line is that I am in the group of the change-agent chiefs, and that’s why I have typically been an outsider who comes in.”