In the early 1990s, Carmen Best was working as an accountant for a local insurance company when she saw a recruitment ad for the Seattle Police Department. “I just wanted to do something different, try something out," she told Bill Radke. "Had no preconceived ideas about staying for a long time, or not staying, just thought I would give it a shot and see what happens.” Twenty-six years later, Carmen Best is the interim police chief of the department. She took the job in January when Kathleen O’Toole stepped down. Until Seattle hires a new chief, she will be leading the department through changes to its use-of-force and biased-policing policies, contract negotiations with the police union, and the ongoing investigation into the shooting of Charleena Lyles. Here are a few takeaways from Best's interview with Radke. Questions and responses were edited for length and clarity. Does SPD need to change its policy or training in light of what happened to Charleena Lyles?

First, let me say this was nothing less than a horrific tragedy ... There are a whole host of things that came into play that made that incident at that moment in time occur. I think there's a whole lot of failed systems that just didn't work in terms of mental health and other things that could have helped prevent those officers from being there at that moment, dealing with that situation at that time. So that being said, I think that we need to work on a lot of different systems to make sure that no one falls through the cracks and it ends up in a situation like that. Could it just as well happen tomorrow? I'm not clairvoyant. Certainly, there could be a situation where an officer-involved shooting occurs. We're trying to do everything that we can to prevent it through our training, and we will review every incident. And this incident isn't done yet. There will still be an inquest, there's still an investigation that will occur further into it. There's a whole larger gamut of information that will be looked at through the inquest process, and anything we can glean or learn from that. We'll do that because we want to do a good job in this. Nothing is more important than the sanctity of life, and that under all circumstances, we're going to try to make sure that we do everything to protect life. What was your takeaway from the letter Seattle Seahawk Michael Bennett recorded for ESPN?