It is, arguably, the most important task that awaits a new mayor: finding a police commissioner.

Get it right, and city leaders can rest a little easier, knowing they have a leader who can craft a plan for combating violent crime, and navigate crises that arise along the way. Get it wrong, and the position itself will be a source of uncertainty and turmoil.

The debate over who should be Philadelphia’s next top cop grew more urgent on Tuesday, when Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw announced that she will resign on Sept. 22, after three-and-a-half years in the role, and take a job with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Outlaw will be replaced, temporarily, by her first deputy, John Stanford, a former department spokesperson who also oversaw Internal Affairs.

After the November mayoral election, it will fall to Democrat Cherelle Parker, or her Republican challenger, David Oh, to answer a decades-old question: Is it better to hire an insider, a person who started out, at one time, as a beat cop in the Philadelphia Police Department, and climbed the ranks? Or an outsider, someone with limited knowledge of the city, but no personal conflicts?

In addition to Stanford, police sources and city insiders expect at least two veteran police officials to be in the running for the job: Deputy Commissioner Joel Dales, who is in charge of the Police Department’s patrol operations, and Kevin Bethel, a former deputy commissioner who is now the chief of school safety for the Philadelphia School District.

Here’s what you need to know about what will happen next, following Outlaw’s announcement:

When will there be a new police commissioner?

Stanford will serve as interim police commissioner until the end of the year, when Mayor Jim Kenney’s final term ends.

New mayors typically appoint their own police commissioners at the start of their administrations. Parker is widely expected to defeat Oh in the Nov. 7 general election, given Democrats’ more than 7-to-1 voter registration advantage in the city, but it is unlikely that Parker would announce her selection until after the election.

Kenney and his predecessor, Michael A. Nutter, both revealed their choices for police commissioner after they won their November general elections, but before they took the oath of office in January.

In 2007, Nutter chose Charles H. Ramsey, who’d spent 30 years in Chicago’s police department, and then nine years as the chief of the Washington, D.C., police force, and arrived in Philadelphia as a reform-minded outsider.

Eight years later, Kenney named Richard Ross, a consummate department insider, as Ramsey’s successor. Four years later, Ross resigned amid controversy.

The last time a new mayor took office without appointing a new top cop was in 2000, when then-Mayor John F. Street retained a popular outsider, New York’s John Timoney, who began serving as police commissioner during former Mayor Ed Rendell’s administration.

Not coincidentally, the Street-Rendell transition was also the last time the outgoing and incoming mayors were close allies.

Kenney and Parker also get along well politically, but Outlaw’s departure makes it certain that the Police Department’s next chapter will be written by the next administration.

‘Hit the ground running’

Police experts and antiviolence advocates each cite different traits they’d like to see in a new police chief, but agree that whoever fills the job will need to immediately address the city’s gun violence epidemic, and embrace rebuilding trust between community residents and the department.

Ramsey, looking back on his eight-year tenure in Philadelphia, said he met one-on-one with rank-and-file officers and supervisors, and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5, to gain a sense of the police force’s strengths and weaknesses. He also sought an independent evaluation of the department.

Nutter gave Ramsey 90 days to assemble a crime-fighting plan; Ramsey assembled one in several weeks.

“You gotta hit the ground running,” Ramsey said. “Criminals don’t take the weekend off. They don’t wait until an election is over to carjack or rob someone. You can’t take a break, either.”

Anthony Erace, the interim executive director of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission, said Outlaw’s replacement should be genuinely committed to transparency, and implementing long-standing calls for policing reforms.

“They have to understand what policing is supposed to be in this century,” he said. “Wanting reform doesn’t mean that we don’t want police to do their jobs. It means we want them to be great at their jobs.”

Victoria Wylie created a foundation to combat the sort of gun violence that claimed the life of her brother, Donte, in 2008, and has worked with paralyzed gun violence survivors. She cited the importance of creating a rapport between police and residents, one block at a time.

Wylie said: “I want to see a commissioner who is out in the streets more than they are at headquarters, a commissioner who pops up in neighborhoods at random — not because they’re asked to, but because it’s their professional responsibility.”

Commissioner characteristics

Some political actors have already encouraged Parker to stick to a pattern of alternating between outside candidates and insiders.

City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson even specified who he thinks Parker should pick from among the ranks: Stanford, the deputy commissioner who will take over on an interim basis once Outlaw decamps for New York.

Stanford “joined the Philadelphia Police Department in 2002 and has worked his way up the ranks and has excelled in every position he has held,” Johnson said in a statement.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said the city needs a commissioner who is “familiar enough with this situation to be able to lead the changes that need to happen. For this moment that we’re in, I feel like we need somebody who knows the city, who knows these neighborhoods, and who knows the Police Department.”

Gauthier said she doesn’t categorically favor picking inside candidates, and continues to support Kenney’s decision to go outside the department in 2020, when he hired Outlaw away from being the police commissioner of Portland, Ore.

FOP President John McNesby reiterated on Tuesday the union’s preference for internal candidates.

”We’ve invested a lot in our commanders, a lot of time, a lot of resources,” he said. “Outside picks don’t gel well in this town, with the political atmosphere and the learning curve, it just doesn’t work.”

It’s hard to find a good chief

Outlaw took the helm in Philadelphia at an unprecedented time. The pandemic was at a peak. The murder of George Floyd sparked civil unrest. Violent crime, including murder and carjackings, were on the rise, cops were leaving the department, and since the courts were closed, the criminal justice system came to a screeching halt.

“These last three to four years have been a period in policing unlike any other,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises law enforcement agencies on best practices and helps cities search for police leaders. “For a new police commissioner, that was an additional hurdle that they don’t usually face.” Wexler and his group helped Philadelphia, at city leaders’ request, in its search when Outlaw was selected.

“The next commissioner of Philadelphia will have the number one priority — in addition to reducing violent crime — to figure out how to attract the next generation of Philadelphia cops,” Wexler said. “Because the reality is you don’t have the same numbers of people who want to be cops.”

Wexler doesn’t believe it matters if the next commissioner is an insider or an outsider, both of which he described as successful.

“They need to understand Philadelphia. They need to take Philadelphia to the next level. Certainly, they have to deal with violent crime, but also strengthen relations with the community and rebuild public trust.”

The search for Outlaw’s successor comes at a time when many big cities are struggling to find police chief candidates.

Eddie Garcia, the chief of the Dallas Police Department, is also the president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of police executives representing the largest cities in the U.S. and Canada.

Since January 2020, Garcia said, 75 of the 79 cities affiliated with the organization have had changes in leadership, some more than once.

“The high turnover is certainly an issue,” Garcia said. “When you’re trying to make impactful change and culture changes, reduce violent crime, increase police morale, which has taken a hit nationally in the last few years, it’s incredibly important to have a steady hand and consistency.”

“It’s very difficult to really enact true change,” he said, “when you’re in essence playing musical chairs.”