City of Mesa announces new police chief, Ken Cost

MESA, Ariz. - Moving forward is the way Chief Ken Cost is going into his new role at the Mesa Police Department after working in different positions, including patrol officer, detective and in the gang unit for 25 years.

Cost's promotion comes after the department went under fire for allegations of excessive force and the police association voting "no-confidence" for the prior chief, Ramon Batista, who stepped down last November after two years on the job.

How does Cost plan on holding his officers accountable, but keeping the trust within the community?

"I’m moving forward from what’s happened in the past.. put a period on that.. accountability is a big piece of who I am.. the officers now that they’re going to be held accountable in the same right that we have a community that we’re partners with and there’s a balance there, so accountability goes on both sides of that," explained Cost.

He says the department has undergone training.

"We’ve gone through a lot of training for supervisors, so that’s pretty normal accountability everyday work, but our entire department went through what’s called iCAD. It’s basically de-escalation training. We’ve had de-escalation training before in the prior four years. We’ve done it twice, so we did it a third time where we put everybody through that training to get that experience and a different approach."

MORE:

City of Mesa announces new interim police chief

Mesa Police Chief Ramon Batista resigns

Mesa officers at the center of use of force controversies will not be demoted or fired