A police chief's legacy

Five years ago, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse inherited a demoralized police department. In time, he won the trust of the department, taking the lead in its handling of the 2002 Winter Games just five months after the 9/11 attacks, as well as the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart and the slaying of Lori Hacking. Those were just the headlines. Behind the scenes, he quietly won the respect of his officers for personally responding to calls for police backup and keeping open lines of communication with all officers, regardless of rank.

"I've had police officers tell me they've never worked for a chief they've had so much respect for," Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson told the Deseret Morning News after word of Dinse's retirement became public knowledge.

Dinse announced his retirement last week after an inner-office e-mail was inadvertently released to the news media. He said he hopes to finish his 40-year career in law enforcement on a high note — convincing the Salt Lake City Council to place before voters a measure to build a new police headquarters, an Emergency Operations Center and a new patrol division for the east side.

Convincing Salt Lake voters to approve yet another property tax increase may be Dinse's most difficult task yet as chief, although he says he relishes challenges. His resume suggests as much. Dinse served 34 years with the Los Angeles Police Department before he was hired as Salt Lake's chief of police in 2000. While in Los Angeles, Dinse played key roles in the department's handling of the 1984 Summer Games and the 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II. He was a field commander during the city's riots in 1992 and was a task force commander during the Northridge earthquake.

Each of those experiences was great preparation for the 2002 Winter Games, which Dinse considers the highlight of his career. The only glitch in the first large-scale international event since the attacks on the United States was a disturbance near the beer garden at the Gallivan Center.

Dinse's Salt Lake tenure was not without controversy. In the course of the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, he and Mayor Anderson clashed on Dinse's decision not to release a sketch of a homeless street preacher identified by Smart's younger sister, Mary Katherine. The sketch, which was released to the news media by the Smart family, eventually led to the capture of Smart's alleged captors, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee.

While the handling of the Smart case will be debated for years to come, the department's handling of the Hacking case was solid. The crime was solved quickly and the police department, other city agencies and volunteers spent months combing a landfill until Lori Hacking's remains were recovered. The case was handled with great care and sensitivity.

The final chapter of Dinse's career has yet to be written. But for the past five years, the people of Salt Lake City have been well-served by a highly qualified and capable community leader and police chief. We wish him well in his retirement.