Woman and a former Whatcom sheriff’s deputy among Bellingham’s 3 police chief semifinalists
One of the three semifinalists to be the next police chief for the Bellingham Police Department is female, and another got his start in law enforcement with the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office.
Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood named the three finalists in a statement Tuesday, March 8, after more than a year of searching for a new chief and after rejecting all four finalists amid a nationwide search and an initial round of interviews in June 2021.
The semifinalists are:
▪ Everett Police Department Deputy Chief John DeRousee.
▪ Commerce City (Colorado) Police Department Commander Dennis Flynn.
▪ Stanwood Police Department Chief/Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Police Lieutenant Rebecca Mertzig.
The three candidates will be introduced to the Bellingham community at a virtual public forum at 5:30 p.m. March 17.
“We are eager to introduce semi-final candidates as part of our commitment to involving the community in selecting our new Police Chief,” Fleetwood said in the statement.
The three semifinalists were chosen from 15 applicants for the vacancy, according to the department’s police chief selection page. Two others submitted applications after the application period closed Feb. 6.
The salary range for the position was listed as $162,720 to $196,884 per year plus benefits.
Chief David Doll retired in January 2021 and Chief Flo Simon has been serving in the interim as Fleetwood and the City Council have committed to re-imagine policing in the wake of the 2020 racial justice movement and a staffing crunch that has gutted its special units.
Simon, who was Bellingham’s second Black police officer, has said that she intends to retire in May, when a new chief is named.
The three semifinalists
▪ DeRouse has spent 27 years in law enforcement, according to semifinalist bios provided by the city of Bellingham, getting his start with the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. He left and joined the Everett Police Department in 1998 and advanced to his current rank of Deputy Chief in 2018.
DeRouse graduated from the FBI National Academy, according to his bio, and holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and master’s degrees in criminology and homeland security science.
▪ Flynn has served as commander at the Commerce City Police Department, which is in a suburb of Denver, since 2018, according to his bio. He is a 33-year veteran of law enforcement and got his start with the Las Vegas (Nevada) Metropolitan Police Department, where he was promoted to lieutenant in 2009.
Flynn has bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice and public safety leadership and is a graduate of the Northwestern School of Staff Command, according to his bio.
▪ In addition to serving as a lieutenant at the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, Mertzig was recently assigned to serve as police chief for the city of Stanwood, which contracts for law enforcement through the Sheriff’s Office. She has 18 years of experience and was promoted to lieutenant in 2020, according to her bio.
Mertzig has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, her bio states, and she was selected deputy of the year in 2010 and received the FBI-LEEDA Trilogy Award.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 9:43 AM.
