Police Chief Danielle Outlaw has accepted a job to become Philadelphia’s police commissioner after only two years and two months leading Portland’s 1,000-member force during a time of mass political protests and community mistrust.

Outlaw, 43, on Monday thanked Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for his support and her colleagues for their work, noting their commitment to keeping people safe and building public confidence in the Police Bureau.

"I will forever be appreciative of my experience here,” she said.

“While there will always be work to be done toward improvement, that does not take away from the fact that the members of the Bureau are not only extremely talented, compassionate and professional, they are also resilient and accountable to themselves, each other, and to the community,” she said in a statement.

But Outlaw said she’s ready to jump into leading Philadelphia’s troubled police department. She was chosen out of 31 candidates, including 18 from within the department. She starts Feb. 10.

“While I am new to Philadelphia, I am not new to the challenges of big-city, 21st century policing," she said before she was introduced to her new city at an afternoon news conference at Philadelphia City Hall.

“Modern policing is data-driven, but the paramount factor is not so easily quantified: trust — the trust residents have that their police force will keep them safe and treat them with respect," she said. “I am convinced that trust can be restored, here and across the nation. I am convinced community-police relations can be rebuilt and fortified through dialogue, transparency, and accountability.”

Outlaw will run a much larger metropolitan department in Philadelphia -- the fourth biggest in the country with 6,500 sworn members and 800 civilian members -- that has been rocked by scandals in the past year. They included a sexual harassment lawsuit that led to the abrupt resignation of former Commissioner Richard Ross.

In Portland, she was selected in October 2017 as the first African American woman to lead the city’s Police Bureau after a national search and made $240,926.40 by the time she left. She also will be the first black woman to lead the Philadelphia department and will make $285,000.

Wheeler congratulated Outlaw for “landing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" in Philadelphia and praised her work in Portland, where he said "she helped make a positive difference.”

“She came to Portland exceedingly qualified for the position of police chief, and leaves more prepared than ever for her new position in Philadelphia," Wheeler said in a joint statement with Outlaw.

Outlaw said she doesn’t think police chiefs ever have an ideal time "to transition on to our next role in life. However, I am making this transition on good terms, knowing the Bureau will be left in the hands of a strong leadership team.”

Deputy Chief Jami Resch, who has been with the Portland bureau for 20 years, will become the city’s new chief, Wheeler announced.

Outlaw will join the beleaguered Philadelphia department as a reformer, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said.

“I am appointing Danielle Outlaw because I am convinced she has the conviction, courage, and compassion needed to bring long-overdue reform to the Department,” Kenney said.

“With our support, she will tackle a host of difficult issues, from racism and gender discrimination, to horrid instances of sexual assault on fellow officers," he said. “These are issues that too often negatively impact women — especially women of color — within the Department. Commissioner Outlaw will implement reforms with urgency, so that racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination are not tolerated.”

Kenney said Outlaw also “will work relentlessly to combat crime, particularly homicides and other violent crime.” Philadelphia recorded more than 350 homicides last year. Portland had 33 homicides in 2018.

After an extensive search, I am proud to appoint Portland, Oregon’s Police Chief Danielle Outlaw to serve as the next Commissioner of @PhillyPolice. I am confident that Outlaw possesses the strength, integrity, and empathy vital to leading the department. https://t.co/1HELnOYaA5 — Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) December 30, 2019

Kenney picked Outlaw, he said, because of her “directness, intelligence and experience.”

“It was time for an outside look and she wowed us in all the interviews,” he said at the press conference.

He described the profound challenges facing Outlaw as she assumes the post.

“I can tell you that after meeting and speaking with her at length she possess the strength and integrity vital to the task ahead,” he said.

Outlaw, wearing plain clothes and standing at a podium featuring the Philadelphia city seal, took a moment to acknowledge Wheeler. She called leading the Portland Police Bureau “an honor.” She then turned her focus to the future, saying it "will be an absolute privilege to serve as Philadelphia police commissioner.”

“I will work relentlessly to reduce crime, in particular the insidious gun violence that plagues too many of our communities,” she said.

Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said he wasn’t surprised Outlaw landed “a job of this magnitude.”

“She proved she could make hard decisions by making the tactical changes in the bureau that enforced the rules for protests and began the process of restoring order in downtown Portland,” Turner said in a statement. “Her accomplishments are all the more significant because they happened at a time when Portland simply could not recruit and retain police officers. And we continue to face the worst staffing shortage in our history."

Outside observers had long suspected that Outlaw, who rose quickly through the ranks of Oakland’s Police Department before arriving in Portland, would use the job here as a stepping stone to a big-city department.

She has been active in many national policing organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. While Portland’s chief, she continued to network and travel to attend the groups’ national conferences, often taking some of her command staff along.

While she pledged in Philadelphia to foster a foundation of “humanity in authority,” Outlaw’s tenure in Portland has been marked by criticism over how police officers deal with the public. As only Portland’s third chief hired from outside the city, she struggled to gain acceptance and support within the Police Bureau, within City Hall and in the community.

She took over from Chief Mike Marshman, a longtime bureau supervisor who held the top job for about a year after Chief Larry O’Dea retired amid a criminal investigation into his off-duty shooting of a friend during a camping trip in southeastern Oregon.

Tasked by the mayor to build trust between police and a swath of skeptical residents, Outlaw said in an interview in fall that she was still working on that goal.

The chief and the bureau also struggled with how to respond to major protests, continued police shootings of people in mental health crisis and a serious staffing shortage. She also had to work to gain support among City Council members.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, a frequent critic of police tactics and bureaucracy, said Outlaw’s job “was not an easy one.”

“As an outsider, being asked to change the culture of the Portland Police Bureau required a herculean effort, as well as a support team which I fear she never found,” Hardesty said in a statement.

“While I appreciate the work done by Chief Outlaw, the fact remains that chiefs will come and go – but it is the culture they leave behind that matters most to our community,” she said. “There is still much work to be done to make PPB the organization we need it to be.”

A few months ago, Outlaw said she was most pleased that the city-hired team of overseers examining the 2014 Justice Department settlement with the city recently found the Police Bureau in “substantial compliance’’ with the agreement’s provisions.

The settlement followed a federal investigation that concluded Portland officers had a pattern of using excessive force against people with mental illness. It required changes to police use-of-force policies, training and oversight. A judge still must agree with the city overseers and community members have voiced concerns.

“I think it’s a huge achievement for our organization and our members here to show the work that’s been done since the inception of the agreement in a short period of time,’’ Outlaw said.

Yet members of a community group formed to monitor the reforms have been unconvinced by the compliance finding, pointing to police officers’ continued use of deadly force against people with mental illness. At least three of five people killed by police this year were suffering a mental health crisis.

After police shootings, Outlaw often has voiced dismay that by the time people in crisis encounter police, they often have fallen through the gaps of an underfunded mental health care system.

“It becomes extremely frustrating when we know that by the time we’re called to the scene, many, many systems have already failed them, two, three, four times over, and we get the headline obviously because the ultimate happened,’’ she told The Oregonian/OregonLive in October.

“But no one is questioning in the same manner we get questioned (about) what happened before this happened. Who failed this person? Why didn’t they get the services that they need? How do we even get called in the first place? Where is the same level of accountability?’’

In another high-profile controversy, members of the Police Bureau were dismayed and discouraged when the mayor and some city commissioners immediately blasted friendly text messages made public between a police lieutenant who served as a crowd control liaison and Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson before an investigation got underway.

Gibson, a Vancouver-area resident, has led many of the right-wing marches and rallies in Portland that have drawn fierce opposition from progressive and radical activists, resulting in the violent street clashes that placed a spotlight on the city’s protest movements as well as the police’s response to them.

For some, the chummy text exchanges provided proof of a political bias held by Portland police, which some residents say have unfairly targeted left-wing activists with mass arrests and less-lethal weapons, including rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. The bureau currently faces multiple lawsuits alleging police under Outlaw used excessive force against people protesting Patriot Prayer events.

An investigation by the city’s Independent Police Review division ultimately found the crowd control lieutenant, Jeff Niiya, was doing his job by communicating with Gibson, but the bureau adopted more stringent standards for such exchanges.

Amid ongoing brawls at demonstrations, Outlaw called for an anti-mask law for protesters and changes in state law that would allow police to video-record demonstrations from start to finish. But she received little support from the city’s elected commissioners or mayor for either. She said that she’d also still like to see a pilot project for body cameras get council approval. That hasn’t happened yet.

Under Outlaw, the Police Bureau lowered its hiring standards to try to attract more applicants to fill the growing number of vacancies in an authorized force of 1,001. As of October, the bureau had 110 sworn officer vacancies, leaving it scrambling to fill patrol shifts each day.

Police supervisors are considering refiguring patrol shifts early next year to better align officers to hours when emergency calls are more frequent. Lowering the educational standard for new officers, the chief said in October, has resulted in an increase in applications – more than 950 eligible candidates this year compared to 809 last year.

Outlaw also pushed the city to add a deputy chief to her command staff and worked to focus enforcement based on crime data, having precinct commanders set priorities each quarter dictated by problems in their districts.

With a deputy chief, Outlaw sought to leave her second-in-command running day-to-day operations while she worked to control strategic policy and improve relations outside the bureau.

Jami Resch, Portland's new police chiefPortland Police Bureau

Resch, 45, is well regarded and provides “internal continuity we must have to keep moving in a positive direction,” Wheeler said. Resch’s current salary is $185,556.80.

Wheeler said he considered “all the options” for the next chief and settled on Resch.

Resch has had a quick rise in the bureau. Last year, Outlaw picked Resch, then a captain, to serve as assistant chief of investigations. In May, Outlaw promoted Resch to deputy chief, saying she brought a “strong balance of perspective and experience” to the job.

Resch previously served as an acting commander of North Precinct, a lieutenant in the criminal intelligence division and a sergeant of the gun task force. Resch also has served as manager of the bureau’s Honor Guard and as a critical incident commander. She has been a member of the bureau’s Muslim police advisory council and Slavic advisory council.

“She has my complete trust and a thorough understanding of my agenda,” Wheeler said. “She is the right person at the right time for the job."

(Reporters Noelle Crombie and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh contributed to this report.)

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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