A Chicago police commander’s odyssey to land a chief’s job in another city has come up empty again — this time in Detroit.
Joshua Wallace was one of three finalists for Detroit’s police chief job. This week, the mayor there picked a Detroit candidate, the interim police chief, over Wallace and a former chief of a Denver transportation district.
The Detroit News reported the Michigan staffing service that ran the candidate search was unaware Wallace had filed for bankruptcy last year after he fell more than $839,000 in debt.
Wallace’s bankruptcy was first reported by a newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa, in October after he was named a finalist for the chief’s job there. That position went to a local candidate, too.
Last year, Wallace also was a finalist for police chief’s jobs in Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado. The Austin job went to a Cincinnati assistant police chief, and the Boulder job went to the interim police chief there.
In a brief interview last year, Wallace told the Sun-Times he was “unaware” of whether his Chicago police superiors knew of his huge debt before Sept. 1, 2023, when he was named commander of the department’s Criminal Networks Group, a unit that oversees joint narcotics and gang operations between the police department and federal and local law enforcement agencies.
Wallace filed his bankruptcy petition about six months later, on Feb. 29.
“It’s a personal matter that was the best option for me when I was going through a rough divorce,” Wallace said in that interview. “The debt has been restructured and is being repaid. It’s unfortunate, it’s embarrassing and it’s personal.”
Debt can be a disqualifying factor for jobs in the Chicago Police Department. Even police applicants get rejected over large debts because of the risk they might steal money to solve their financial issues. Wallace hasn’t been accused of any such misconduct.
Wallace’s bankruptcy didn’t come up during his Jan. 30 interview with Detroit’s Board of Police Commissioners, which selected the finalists.
According to a transcript of the interview, Wallace said he’s an expert on search warrants and was on a panel rewriting the city policy on them. He talked about the importance of technology, including drones, which he called an “eye in the sky while officers investigate the scene.” He also extolled the benefits of gunshot detectors like ShotSpotter, which Mayor Brandon Johnson eliminated in September to keep a campaign pledge to anti-technology activists.
Wallace, saying he wanted to be “transparent,” also asked for time to explain to the board that online information about his professional record is wrong and that he never got a five-day suspension for excessive force. He didn’t bring up his bankruptcy.