Edward A. Flynn was appointed as the eighteenth police chief in the 153 year history of the Milwaukee Police Department in January 2008. He commands an agency of 2,000 sworn officers and 500 civilians serving a city of over 600,000 residents.
He was police commissioner in Springfield, Massachusetts from 2006 to 2008. As the police chief executive he was responsible for 470 officers and 100 civilians serving a city of 155,000 residents. Brought in to reform the agency, he overhauled its systems and reorganized its operations, implementing a community-based, problem-oriented, data driven strategy that focused the entire department on the issues of crime, fear and disorder. Significant decreases in crime were achieved and community relations were improved.
Flynn served as Secretary of Public Safety under Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney from January 2003 until taking command in Springfield. As Secretary, he was responsible for the management of a variety of public safety agencies, boards, and commissions including the Massachusetts State Police, the Department of Correction, the National Guard, the Department of Fire Services, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the Parole Board, and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. He also served as the chief adviser to the Governor on homeland security.
Prior to his appointment as Secretary of Public Safety, he served for five years as the Chief of Police in Arlington, Virginia. He commanded a 360 officer department serving 190,000 residents. In this capacity he was instrumental in the recovery effort at the Pentagon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and in the fall of 2002, he participated in the sniper shootings investigation in the Washington DC area.
His began his career in the Jersey City Police Department, where he was promoted through the ranks of officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and inspector. He served as the Chief of Police in Braintree and subsequently Chelsea, Massachusetts. In Chelsea he helped lead the city out of state-imposed receivership to designation as an All American City.
Flynn is a fellow of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Public Administration, serves on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, is on the Board of Directors for the Council of State Governments Justice Center, and serves on the Fight Crime Invest in Kids executive board. He is a past recipient of the prestigious Gary Hayes Memorial Award for Police Leadership from the Police Executive Research Forum and served on PERF's board of directors for five years. As a member of the new Executive Session on Policing at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he is participating in a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the meaning of safety and justice in the United States.
He holds a B.A. in history from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, a Masters degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and completed all course work in the Ph.D. program in criminal justice from the City University in New York. Chief Flynn is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the National Executive Institute and was a National Institute of Justice Pickett Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.