Albany

Police Chief Brendan Cox is preparing to retire from the department he's led for the past year, several people briefed on Cox's plans said.

Leah Golby, chair of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, said Cox told her Thursday night that he planned to leave for a job with a Seattle-based not-for-profit organization. He offered no specific retirement date.

Cox, who has 22 years on the police force, is leaving for a job with Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, a national program aimed at reducing low-level arrests, racial disparities and recidivism. Golby said. Albany was the third city in the nation, following Seattle and Santa Fe, N.M., to launch a LEAD program.

"I've worked with six or seven chiefs in my day and Cox, I believe, was the best chief for Albany," said Alice Green, a longtime social justice activist in the city. "He has worked to change the culture of the Albany Police Department."

"Police officers were mainly interested in controlling the inner city and its people," Green said. "Now, officers see themselves as partners of the community."

Cox, 45, declined to comment Friday morning. When word of his possible retirement surfaced in October, Cox told the Times Union that he had no plans to leave.

Mayor Kathy Sheehan's office declined to comment, but the mayor and Cox will hold a joint news conference at 10 a.m. Monday, city officials said.

Golby was one of several people who said they've been told the chief is on the verge of taking another job. Cox was eligible for retirement two years ago but decided to stay on in leadership.

"He'll be deeply missed," Golby said. "Brendan has a long tenure with the police department, and he was instrumental in bringing community policing into the city."

Cox, who grew up on Wood Terrace off New Scotland Avenue and now lives in Loudonville with his family, was intimately involved in the creation of the city's revamped beat patrols and a citizen advisory panel.

"Community policing is the backbone of what we do," Cox said in an October address to 11 new police recruits. "We can't make change alone."

Cox took over as acting chief in April 2015, and was confirmed by the Common Council in July of that year.

Less than 48 hours into his tenure as acting chief, a mentally ill Arbor Hill man died after officers stunned him with a Taser. A grand jury took no action in the case involving four officers and the District Attorney's office closed its investigation in the death of Donald "Dontay" Ivy, which played out against the backdrop of national unrest over high-profile cases of African-American men dying in police custody and sparked local protests and calls for reforms.

Green, who is the executive director of the Center for Law & Justice, said those protests never boiled over to violence in Albany as in other places in part because of the work of Cox and his predecessor, Chief Steven Krokoff.

"He called me — I was out of the country — and said, 'This is what happened,'" Green said in a 2015 interview. "And that's really special, and I think that speaks well of who he is and what his commitment is."

Cox worked with Green to introduce LEAD in Albany. All of the city's roughly 340 officers completed four hours of training last spring on exercising discretion to divert offenders involved in crimes such as shoplifting and marijuana possession. A relatively small number of these offenders, who often suffer from mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction, repeatedly tie up limited resources in the criminal justice system and are called "frequent fliers."

About 15 people have been diverted since April, Cox said in October. "We know these are long-term clients. They're not going to be, in 24 hours, ready to go," Cox said.

"He looks at drugs and mental health as a public health issue," instead of solely a criminal justice issue, Green said. "He doesn't like to see people go to jail."

The son of a stay-at-home mother and a boiler operator who worked two jobs, Cox attended Christian Brothers Academy and majored in criminal justice at the University of Dayton. He later earned a master's degree in public administration from Marist College.

"Everybody always says this, but I wanted to get into some sort of career to help people," he said in a 2015 interview.

He began working midnights patrolling West Hill and Pine Hills out of what's now known as Center Station. He was promoted to sergeant in 1998 and lieutenant in 2004, a path that included two tours in the Children and Family Services unit and brief stint overseeing special operations. Cox was elevated to commander in 2006, after which he oversaw the detective division, then to assistant chief in 2008 and deputy in 2013.

The department won a federal grant for a body-worn camera program for officers, which is being piloted this winter.

Under Cox's leadership, all city officers received implicit bias training — a policy protesters across the country have called for to combat prejudiced policing.

"It is important for officers to realize he or she has bias," Green said. The training has changed "the way officers see people and how they approach them," she said.

"Cox has balanced the needs of his officers with the needs of the community," Green said.