The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police named Evanston Police Department’s Schenita Stewart its Police Chief of the Year earlier this month.
Stewart has served as the EPD’s chief of police since October 2022 and has worked in law enforcement for more than 25 years. She is the first woman to have ever won the title.
The Daily spoke with Stewart about the award, her background in law enforcement and community engagement.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily: How did you get into policing?
Stewart: I come from a big family. My mom was born and raised in the Bahamas, and my father’s side is here from Evanston — we have a long lineage as fourth-generation Evanstonians. We unfortunately had a tragedy in 1993: a cousin of mine was murdered. She gave birth to her son, who was bedridden his whole life. That got me switching. At first, I was thinking in college, maybe athletics, maybe being a PE teacher. After that tragedy, I started gearing toward criminal justice.
The Daily: What was your reaction when ILACP named you the state’s police chief of the year?
Stewart: I’m honored, I’m humbled. I’m not a big person on awards. Awards are hard because they may recognize you, but they don’t recognize all the other people that contributed to an individual being successful. I have a lot of good people: I have great mentors, I have great family members, I have a great supervisor, my city manager. I’ve been able to be successful because of them pouring into me.
The Daily: How does it feel being the first woman named Illinois Police Chief of the Year?
Stewart: It’s nice. Hopefully, moving forward, other females that are doing a great job will get recognized for the job they’re doing. I have no problem being the first. Someone always has to be the first, right?
The Daily: How has being a Black woman impacted your experience in the field, if it has at all?
Stewart: My mother never allowed me or anybody else in my family to make excuses of anything you want to be in life. It’s a matter of just working hard to get it. Now, when it comes to male-dominated professions, I think you do have a little bit of a difference in how they view our work. But in the end, for me, it all comes down to leadership, no matter the sex, race or anything. In certain supervising roles, I think you just need true leadership. Sometimes it’s going to be more of a caring, compassionate, empathy type of leadership. There’s going to be times where I have to hold individuals accountable — whether that’s internally or externally. My mom tells me to lead with my heart.
The Daily: How do you respond to community concerns about policing?
Stewart: The key is leading from the top — being present, being accessible, responding directly to it. I pride myself on making myself accessible to everybody. That’s one of the things I think I was raised on by my mom: Don’t be bigger than the brand, don’t think you’re better than other people. I’m always accessible. I’ve done that for the last two and a half years.
Sometimes people get in leadership roles and say the first year, ‘I’m going to work really hard, but then I’ll take the rest of my career off.’ Every day I wake up is a good day, and I’m just going to try to make the best day out of it. That’s how I lead.
The Daily: In recent years, some community members have raised concerns about police brutality and racial disparity issues in the city’s policing. Do you think the Evanston Police Department has resolved these issues?
Stewart: At the conference I was at (earlier this week), I did the keynote speech on leadership. One of the things I said is you have to own it all. I might not have been the chief in the past, but I’m the chief now. Owning it means to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Right now, the accountability is there for me — I have someone that holds me accountable, I have a city manager. We have an office of professional standards. I have a commander there right now and a sergeant there who I think do a really good job of ensuring that we have fair discipline, no matter who the individual is. That was based off of feedback I got prior to becoming the chief. It doesn’t matter past or present, I’ll own anything that has happened or should happen. I hope that I’d be held accountable if I didn’t do my job of ensuring it doesn’t happen again.
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