The Juneau Police Department’s number two is being promoted to the top job. Deputy Chief Ed Mercer will lead the police department after Juneau’s police chief leaves at the end of the month for Idaho.
City officials said Ed Mercer was a natural choice given his 17 years experience with the Juneau Police Department. He’s been deputy chief since 2000.
“Any time we have a department head opening, we weigh whether we need to go outside, run a full recruitment or whether there’s somebody we believe is an internal candidate that has skills, abilities and leadership vision to lead the department forward,” said Deputy City Manager Mila Cosgrove. “And in this case we took a hard look at Deputy Chief Mercer and determined that we thought he’s ready to step up and lead the department forward.”
Before coming to Juneau, Mercer was a police officer in Sitka. He replaces Bryce Johnson who had served as police chief since 2013. Johnson recently accepted the police chief job for the city of Idaho Falls.
“The department’s headed in a great direction, he’s worked closely with Chief Johnson and we believe that he will be quite effective stepping up into the police chief role,” Cosgrove added.
City officials said Tuesday that Mercer was traveling out of state and unavailable for comment.
