Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker will name Kevin J. Bethel as her pick for Philadelphia’s next police commissioner, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.
Bethel, a former deputy commissioner and the current chief of school safety for the School District of Philadelphia, will be announced Wednesday as the next head of the 5,500-member force. His appointment comes as the Philadelphia Police Department tries to navigate the city out of a three-year wave of violent crime while it has been gripped by low morale and a shortage of nearly 1,000 officers, the Inquirer reports.
