Evanston Native Schenita Stewart Named New Chief Of Police

EVANSTON, IL — For the first time in 16 months, the Evanston Police Department is set to have a permanent chief.

Schenita Stewart, currently the deputy chief of police in East Dundee, will take over as Evanston police chief on Oct. 10, city officials announced Friday.

Stewart grew up in Evanston's 5th Ward and graduated from Evanston Township High School, she said during a forum earlier this month with other finalists, describing it as an "opportunity of a lifetime" to return to her hometown as chief.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to serve the community that raised and supported me my entire life,” Stewart said, in a statement following her appointment. “This great city of Evanston is the lighthouse community that my great grandparents fled to from Abbeville, [South Carolina,] for a better life. I think that if they were alive they would be proud.”

During a candidate forum earlier this month, Stewart said she and her twin sister were the first in their family to earn bachelor's degrees. Now, she has a master's degree from Chicago State University, has graduated the Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command and Executive Management program and teaches community relations, she said.

"As a law enforcement professional, we have to own the history of how we've been used and what we've done. From violations of civil rights to deaths that have occurred. I'm not gonna sit here and deny that at all, and that's why I teach," Stewart said.

"But I also think that the profession is changing, and as a profession, as a police agency, we have to be on board to that change," she said. "We can't keep fighting it. What we're doing is not working. I mean, that's obvious."

Stewart spent more than two decades with the Lincolnwood Police Department, where she rose through the ranks from patrol officer to deputy chief before retiring last year for the East Dundee job.

While in Lincolnwood, Stewart spent 10 years on the North Regional Major Crimes Task force, spending four years as team leader, and was twice named the village's police officer of the year.

Today, Deputy Chief Schenita Stewart is retiring after 21 years with LPD. Stewart has accepted a new DC position with East Dundee PD. Help us wish her the best of luck on her new adventure! Her uplifting personality, contagious laughter & leadership will be missed! 🤗✨😊✨ pic.twitter.com/1w1ERVoi7h
— Lincolnwood Police Department (@LincolnwoodPD) January 8, 2021

“Chief Stewart is an outstanding leader with distinguished service and a deep knowledge of the Evanston community,” City Manager Luke Stowe said in a statement announcing her appointment. “She is uniquely qualified to lead our Police Department while strengthening community relationships. I look forward to working with Chief Stewart in her new role.”

City officials said Stewart's hiring is the culmination of a six-month candidate search to fill the position, which has been vacant since the unexpected June 2021 retirement of the city's last permanent police chief, Demitrous Cook.

Following Cook's departure, Aretha Barnes was promoted from deputy to interim chief. She retired in December 2021, and since then, retired former chief Rich Eddington has returned on an interim basis.

As of mid-September, 33 of the department's 154 budgeted positions were vacant, including 27 sworn officer jobs, which led to some changes in policies and assignments, police said last month.

During the Sept. 8 forum, Stewart said she planned to get to the bottom of why Evanston has been losing experienced officers.

"You have loyal people that work for this police department that have stuck through a pandemic, civil unrest, and they're still here working every day. And you want to surround them and give them the adequate staffing to deal with community concerns," Stewart said.

The best recruitment, she said, would come from current department staff telling others that it is a attractive place to work.

"Right now, that might not be the case, where people feel that they're being supported when they come to work, and we have to change that," Stewart said. "We have to deal with staffing, deal with morale — and, you know, officer wellness — and until we get to those two we can't even get to building a community partnership."

Despite the importance of filling the vacant positions, Stewart said she would look to recruit and retain people who share core values of the community and department rather than rush to bring in new hires.

"I want my family members to be policed by the right people," she said.

The incoming chief emphasized her deep investment in the community where she grew up and her family resides.

"Everybody wants the same thing, right? Everybody wants their family to grow up, be taken care of. You want better for your family than you had," she said. "So no one wants anybody to be treated a certain way. I don't care if I'm in law enforcement or just somebody in the streets, I want my nieces and nephews to be treated a certain way, and not stopped due to who they are or what they look like. And that's just being honest."

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Stewart said the challenge of violent crime is a public health problem, not just a police problem,

"I don't want to infringe on people's Second Amendment rights," she said, "but guns are getting into the hands of people that shouldn't have them. My family has been affected by gun violence. It means something to me. I'm passionate about it."

When crimes are occurring in a certain neighborhood or area of the city, Evanston's chief-to-be said, officers should be proactive and visible in the area, making contact with people and identifying suspects — but not engaging in pretextual traffic stops, arrest or citation quotas, or stop-and-frisk tactics.

"We shouldn't be going to those areas and just stopping everybody for a minor traffic violation and give them a ticket because they happen to live in that certain area," she said. "So now we're over-policing that area. That's not doing us any good."

Stewart said she would look to work with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to lock up those that pose a danger to the community.

"Let's be honest, it is a small minority of people that are committing these crimes that have these illegal weapons and we have to get down to addressing and dealing with those individuals, not everybody within that ward or that community," Stewart said.

"Sometimes they're repeat offenders, and I'm all for alternatives to arrest and all that, but let's be honest: some people need to go to jail, some people need to not be in the community where they're causing havoc," she added. "We have to realize that there's victims, there's victims families that deserve to be in a community that they feel safe and there is no violence — that's where we want to get to, not having any violence."

Earlier:

• 3 Finalists Named For Next Evanston Police Chief, Public Forum Planned
• Settlement Ending Suit Over Ex-EPD Chief's Social Media Snafu Brings Bill To $215,000 Plus Fees
• Evanston Police Staffing Shortage Prompt Policy Shifts
• Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook To Step Down As Top Cop