Austin Police Assistant Chief Joe Chacon named finalist in Waco police chief search

The city of Waco has named four candidates as finalists in its search for a new police chief, and a member of the Austin police top brass, Assistant Chief Joe Chacon, is one of them.

Chacon, one of several assistant chiefs, who has been leading officers since September 2016, began his tenure with the Austin Police Department in 1998.

He was named a finalist alongside Arlington Assistant Police Chief Jaime Ayala, Las Vegas Municipal Police Department Assistant Sheriff Chris Jones and Houston Assistant Police Chief Sheryl Victorian.

Chacon declined to comment on the announcement other than to say that "as this is an ongoing, community-driven process in Waco, I am going to refrain from releasing any public comments until the process is concluded.”

Last year, officials in Boise, Idaho, named Chacon a finalist in their police chief search, but Ryan Lee, an assistant chief with the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon, ultimately accepted that position in the summer. 

Current Austin police Chief of Staff Troy Gay, when he was an assistant chief, also applied to be Waco's police chief in 2016.

Chacon oversees patrol of downtown Austin and special events. He also manages the department's Special Operations Division, which includes SWAT and air patrol.

He faced criticism for his comments at a news conference after a man was killed in the first of series of bombings across Austin in March 2018. At the time, Chacon said that police had so little to go on that they could not conclusively call Anthony Stephan House's March 2 death a homicide.

As part of a range of possibilities, Chacon mentioned that House might have been handling explosives, creating the bomb himself, and that the blast could have been accidental — a suggestion that angered House’s family and friends.

“I do not believe that we have somebody who is going around leaving packages like this,” Chacon told reporters. Later that month, police tracked down a 23-year-old who investigators determined had been doing just that, before he killed himself March 21 as police closed in to arrest him.

Chacon volunteers with the Special Olympics Texas as well as the Austin Miracle League, a baseball league for special needs children, because of his daughter's involvement in the programs.

“Our daughter has become such a focus that our closest friends are involved with special needs," Chacon said on a Special Olympics blog last year. "All our friends at Special Olympics Texas are not concerned about me being a cop. It’s a huge outlet for me."

The Waco finalists have been interviewing with a community stakeholder panel this month, and city officials will interview them in the future. It's unclear when Waco officials will announce who the new police chief will be.