Less than two years into her tenure, DeKalb County’s police chief is in the running for a job in Austin, Texas.
Recently published lists by The Austin American-Statesman and other media outlets included Mirtha Ramos among the nearly four dozen people who have applied to be Austin PD’s next chief. The applications were obtained via public records request.
Ramos became DeKalb police’s first female chief in Nov. 2019, when she was hired away from Miami-Dade police following a 22-year career in South Florida. She inherited a department that was in the process of working an all-time record number of homicides.
DeKalb police broke the same record again in pandemic-plagued 2020, though the spike in violence has been far less pronounced, proportionally speaking, than what has been experienced in neighboring Atlanta and in many other communities across the country.
During her tenure, Ramos has advocated for better pay and promoted more community-oriented policing. DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond recently proposed spending more than $11 million on initiatives that include bonuses for public safety workers and support for various intervention programs.
In an emailed statement provided Tuesday to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Thurmond said Ramos has his support.
“It is no surprise that Chief Ramos and others DeKalb government leaders are being sought after by cities and counties that want to see the same type of innovation and creativity being implemented in the DeKalb County Police Department,” Thurmond said. “While she is being considered for the role in Austin, Chief Ramos has assured me that she is fully committed to her role as DeKalb police chief.”
Austin is the capital of Texas and has a population approaching 1 million, significantly more than DeKalb’s population of about 750,000. Austin PD employs about twice as many officers as DeKalb.
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