3 Finalists Named For Next Evanston Police Chief, Public Forum Planned

EVANSTON, IL — City officials plan to hold a public forum with three finalists for the job of chief of the Evanston Police Department, more than 14 months after the retirement of the last permanent chief.

The three finalists include the recently promoted head of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office Investigations Bureau, made up of 120 sworn officers providing logistical and investigative support to the county prosecutors office, one deputy police chief from the Chicago Police Department, which has about 15 of them and another from East Dundee, which employs 13 officers full-time and six part-time.

Since the June 2021 departure of former Chief Demitrous Cook, the city has had two interim chiefs — Aretha Barnes and Richard Eddington.

Over the past six months, more than 10 candidates were vetted by Mayor Daniel Biss and city staff, based on referrals from Eddington and police leadership organizations, according to an announcement from city staff.

"This was an intentionally timed process due to the fact that candidates wanted to know who the permanent city manager was going to be," it said.

Luke Stowe was hired as city manager last month. Earlier this month, four candidates were interviewed by two panels, after which the City Council held a special meeting at which the pool was reduced to the following three people, based on their feedback.

Migdalia Bulnes, deputy chief of the detective division in the Chicago Police Department, is a Humboldt Park native who joined the department in 1993 after a police recruiter came into her father's Logan Square auto parts shop looking to hire her brother, she said in a 2020 interview posted by the department.

Joshua Hunt has spent more than four years working in the investigation bureau of Cook County State's Attorney's Office, starting as a commander and spending 18 months as a deputy chief before becoming chief in June, according to an online resume. He has also worked as a homicide detective in Georgia and chief investigator for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in Chicago.

Schenita Stewart, deputy chief of police in East Dundee, spent 21 years with the Lincolnwood Police Department before retiring as deputy chief last year to take the job in East Dundee. In a post marking her departure, Lincolnwood police representatives said in a post marking Stewart's departure that her "uplifting personality, contagious laughter & leadership" would be missed. After shortly after arriving in East Dundee, Stewart headed the establishment of a bicycle unit at the department, the Daily Herald reported.

The Community Alliance for a Better Government, a local grassroots transparency group, questioned by the job position was never publicly posted, suggesting it was a violation of the city's human resources policy.

"When we offer people jobs without posting the positions, and by simply talking to people we know, we tend to hire people who look and think like ourselves. The way to a healthy, demographically and ideologically diverse organization is to post jobs publicly, giving the widest range of potential hires a chance to apply," according to a statement from the group. "That this is not being done is of especially grave concern when the job is for police chief, a role that is literally a matter of life and death to residents."

Following the Sept. 8 public forum, residents will be able to provide feedback via the city's website before City Manager Luke Stowe will host one-on-one interviews with candidates and make an offer to one of them.

Questions can be submitted by 5 p.m. Sept. 7 via an online form or by calling or texting 847-448-4311. The event will be will be livestreamed on and archived on the city's YouTube and broadcast on City Channel 16.