During a time when students are afraid to walk home past dark, when everyone knows someone who has been victim of a crime on campus, the people in charge of protecting students are floundering without a leader.

The Madison Police Department has been chief-less since April when former chief Richard Williams announced his much-anticipated retirement. Williams, however, checked out long before then, even taking an untimely trip to visit family in Tennessee during last year’s Halloween riots.

The Police and Fire Commission, a now five-member team appointed by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz to choose the next chief, has taken long enough. Madison has been with a leaderless police department for far too long now.

The PFC made an intelligent move when it chose to limit the search for a chief to internal candidates, however one of the advantages of choosing an internal candidate is the application process is much faster. This hasn’t been the case thus far.

Last week, Cieslewicz finally appointed the fifth member of the PFC, Shiva Bidar-Sielaff. The four original members of the PFC already evaluated and interviewed the three internal candidates for the job and are waiting for Bidar-Sielaff, who owns the deciding vote, to do the same.

The three candidates for police chief, Acting Chief Noble Wray, Capt. Cheri Mapleds and Sgt. Mike Koval are all veterans of the force. They all know how to police the unique city of Madison, which calls for different types of enforcement in different areas. Wray even led one of the most famous cases the MPD will probably ever face.

So just pick one of them already.

The PFC and the mayor must keep in mind the obvious deadline for deciding a chief, a time when the city needs strong leadership: Halloween. If a chief is not chosen before this time of undeniable chaos, who knows what might happen. The problem is not the weekend of Halloween itself but the aftermath of it all. The MPD and the city of Madison needs someone who will be able to take control and take action against any and all crimes committed during this time.

After the unsuccessful attempt to control crowds at last year’s festivities, when the MPD was essentially leaderless, the city should be worried about the same situation occurring again. Although the decision of a new police chief is an important one, it is one that needs to be made quickly.

Acting chief Noble Wray is somewhat impaired in his position as Acting Chief because he does not have the same authority as he would if he were named chief. Nevertheless, he has demonstrated the abilities required to be chief, when he led perhaps the largest and most scrutinized case the MPD will ever face. The Audrey Seiler saga was somewhat of an extended job interview for Wray, who, during the case displayed he is able to effectively conduct and lead searches and investigations of high-profile cases. Besides stumbling over a few words on national television, he also showed he can communicate effectively with the national and local media.

So pick him.

Just pick one. They all know what they are doing, but the people of Madison have waited long enough. Too many assaults were committed last week, too many people have been robbed and worst of all, it is not even Halloween yet.

Madison needs law enforcement and it needs it now. The focus has to stray from busting every kid on the street with a keg cup and hone in on the alarming number of crimes that were committed in previous weeks.

Joanna Salmen ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in Spanish and journalism.