Ann Arbor’s first police chief was also its longest serving. Thomas O’Brien started as chief in 1916 when the town went from mayor-appointed marshals to commission-appointed chiefs and ended seventeen years later, when O’Brien died in office.
Terms have gotten shorter since then. Seto’s three immediate predecessors stayed an average of five years. And Seto has been chief only since 2012, making his the shortest tenure since Doug Smith left to be Tucson’s chief in 1994.
Seto wasn’t hired away. He told the Observer in February that he had “no aspirations to be in a bigger city or a different career,” and he confirms he has no new job lined up. So why is he stepping down?
“There’s nothing that’s making me leave,” Seto says. “I’ve been supported by the officers and command staff and city leadership and council and the community. I am blessed to have finished twenty-five years and have the ability to retire. The timing was right both for me personally and within the department.”
City administrator Steve Powers calls Seto “one of the most honest, ethical, and sincere individuals I have ever met” and says he doesn’t think there’s any deeper story behind the departure: “I believe him when he says it’s time.”
While Seto doesn’t rule out returning to police work at some point, he says he also has “a great interest in teaching … If I have the opportunity I would love to teach at a college level.”
Seto readily admits that last fall’s fatal shooting of a knife-wielding woman in her home “had an impact on the department. There hadn’t been an officer-involved shooting in my twenty-five years.” But he says both members and the department responded courteously and thoughtfully to the shooting of Aura Rosser, which the state police and the county prosecutor concluded was justified.
Council had already approved officers wearing body cameras before the shooting, and Seto says some already are in use for testing and evaluation. “We’re working with the sheriff’s department, the Ypsilanti city police, and the EMU police to make sure we have consistent policies.” Seto expects full deployment within months.
Will other changes follow the department’s review of the shooting? “We had meetings about what we learned and what we could do differently,” the chief says. “But I’d rather keep those internal.”
Born in Hong Kong in 1967, Seto moved to Detroit at seven. He hired in at the AAPD as a patrol officer after graduating from EMU in 1990. In his long career, Seto served under four chiefs: Doug Smith, Carl Ent, Dan Oates, and Barnett Jones, who made him his deputy chief for operations. “Barnett pushed him to step out of his comfort zone, particularly in the parts of the job that required more community interaction,” says the person who promoted him to the top, Steve Powers. “It really helped him when the chief opportunity came along. He already had the internal experience. It was the last piece that was missing from his portfolio.”
Seto took over in the wake of deep staff cuts that reduced the number of sworn officers from 216 to 118 in the course of a decade. Yet despite the reductions, the city’s crime rate is less than half what it was when he was hired as a young officer. The department’s surveys, he says, find that the public is mostly concerned “with nuisance-type things: aggressive panhandling, graffiti, drug use, also traffic complaints like driving too fast or not being polite.”
Why have violent crimes decreased? “The number-one reason is collaboration with other law enforcement agencies,” Seto says. “In the case of the tragic homicide of the U-M student [in 2013], the U-M police pretty much just gave us a detective for many months. And the sharing of information has a significant impact. The surveillance photos, the photos from private cameras that get shared–a lot of people are identified that way.”
Seto’s number-two reason is that “solving crime reduces crime because many crimes are committed by the same people. You’re preventing crimes that would have been committed.” Seto cites B&Es, bank robberies, “and the terrible home invasions from Thanksgiving last year. Our detectives went out to Texas to assist in [solving] the case.”
He acknowledges that the cuts hurt officer morale. When he took over, the department “hadn’t had promotions in many years. We weren’t hiring people, so people on the low end of the seniority list continued to be on the low end.
“When I became chief, although our numbers didn’t increase, when we had people retire, we didn’t [eliminate the positions], so we did have some movement. In the time I’ve been chief we hired thirty officers. That created opportunities for promotions, [which] naturally helped.”
Deputy chief Jim Baird has been appointed interim chief. But Seto’s successor won’t necessarily come from within the department. Powers has launched a national search for his replacement.
“There was an open process last time, but John was a clear candidate,” Powers says. “This time it’s not as clear. If there are internal candidates, and I hope there are, I want them to be able to compete against the best in the country. By the end of the year we hope to have someone hired.”
