Beverly Hills, Meet Your New Police Chief

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Mark Stainbrook will step in as Police Chief for the City of Beverly Hills come November, the city announced Wednesday, entering the department amid lawsuits and controversy.

Stainbrook will be the first full-time replacement for former chief Sandra Spagnoli, who resigned in April 2020 amid lawsuits claiming she had made racist remarks and harassed other employees.

Dominick Rivetti has served as interim chief for the past 18 months, "some of the most challenging times in the history of the city," City Manager George Chavez said in a news release.

Stainbrook's Background

Stainbrook began his career as a Los Angeles Police Department officer in 1995. He rose to the rank of lieutenant before joining the San Diego Harbor Police Department as assistant chief in 2011. He became chief of the San Diego Harbor Police Department in 2018, and was selected as the San Diego Crime Commission's County Law Enforcement Official of the Year in 2019.

“The opportunity to lead the Beverly Hills Police Department is the culmination of my career in law enforcement,” Stainbrook said in a news release. “I look forward to working with the outstanding staff of BHPD while engaging with members of the community as we all work together to keep the community safe and move the department forward.”

Stainbrook recently retired as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, where held a variety of assignments including military police, civil affairs and information operations over a 32-year career, said Keith Sterling, Chief Communications Officer for Beverly Hills. While serving in Iraq in 2003, Stainbrook was tasked to reconstitute Iraqi police units in Baghdad.

Beverly Hills City Manager George Chavez said Stainbrook's "international credentials, experience in high-profile agencies and collaborative approach will bring new energy and valuable insight to our community and the department."

"Challenging Times"

Beverly Hills is facing multiple high profile allegations of racial profiling against the city. In late September, a Black activist sued the city alleging rights violations for arrests made during protests following the police murder of George Floyd.

This lawsuit came just after civil rights attorney Ben Crump, famous for his involvement in the Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and city of Flint, Michigan cases, announced a class action lawsuit against the City of Beverly Hills over the arrests of 106 people of color. Crump claimed in a statement that the BHPD has a "lengthy and documented history of racial profiling and targeting Black and brown people."

Stainbrook hopes his appointment will be a "fresh start" for the department, he told the Beverly Hills Courier. He said police departments across the country are facing low morale due to a combination of the pandemic, low staffing and "abuse that law enforcement has been taking over the last couple of years." He believes the department has a bright future, he said, and doesn't want to focus on the past.

"I literally don’t know anyone at the department. So, everybody there has a fresh start with me and I hope that leads to fresh starts with their internal relationships with each other and building bridges with each other and with the community," Stainbrook told the Beverly Hills Courier. He added: "I have no doubt that everybody there knows the things that need to be done. They just need someone to help them actualize it. My first job is to listen."

In the interview, Stainbrook said he doesn't subscribe to the "group think" that has been criticized as leading to a lack of accountability for police. In a 2007 column for Police Magazine, Stainbrook said that police must continue to learn on the job and follow their own sense of right and wrong, advice he sees many police officers ignore.

"It just makes you realize that there are people in any industry, in any organization that could be bad apples. You have to make sure that everybody is not having group think and just going along with everything. It’s okay to question some things and if something’s not right, say something about it," Stainbrook said in an interview with the Beverly Hills Courier.

Stainbrook wants to know how the people of Beverly Hills want to be policed, especially as the nation reconsiders the role of police in society, he told the Courier.

"We’re put in a funny position right now where law enforcement is trying to rethink what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And that’s a positive thing—that should be the national dialogue," Stainbrook said.

City News Service and Emily Rahhal contributed to this story.