Behind the badge: Everett’s new police chief prioritizes community engagement

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 13, 2026

EVERETT — For the new Everett police chief, connecting with the community is at the root of what he does.

After Chief John DeRousse retired at the end of 2025 following his 27-year career at the Everett Police Department, Mayor Cassie Franklin appointed Deputy Chief Robert Goetz to fill the role. Goetz was sworn into his new role on Wednesday at a city council meeting.

“I’m incredibly grateful to Deputy Chief Goetz for accepting this appointment to serve as Everett’s new chief of police,” said Franklin in an Everett Police Department press release. “Robert brings decades of experience; strong relationships throughout the department and across the region; and a steady leadership style that reflects the values of our community. His willingness to step up and serve in this capacity during this period of transition speaks to his commitment to this department and the people of Everett.”

While this is his first time in the chief’s seat, Goetz is no stranger to the various roles it takes to make the station run.

During the 35 years Goetz has served the Everett community, he has held almost every operational and administrative position at the department, including patrol sergeant, public information officer, administrative lieutenant in the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force and school resource officer.

“It’s been an amazing ride for 35 years,” Goetz said when The Daily Herald spoke with him in December.

Since he started in 1991, Goetz said he has seen a lot of change, growth and community pride being built. As he steps into this new position, he hopes to hone the department’s current programs and engage with the community.

‘The best police department that we can be’

Over the past three decades, he said some of his most rewarding roles were his year as a school resource officer at Evergreen Middle School, his seven years as the public information officer where he got to “put a reliable face to the department,” and his time on the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force, where his work impacted community members’ quality of life in Everett and across the region.

“I joke with my colleagues that it seems like it’s hard for me to keep a job here in the department because I’ve had an opportunity to go from assignment to assignment,” he said.

While he didn’t plan to work such a wide range of positions, Goetz said he would encourage other officers to obtain knowledge in all areas of policing, as it led him to being a more well-rounded police officer.

“Sometimes some of the things that I did were not the things that were the most fun things in the police department to do,” Goetz said. “But I knew we had a mission, and I knew that we needed to get something done.”

For Goetz, community engagement is what makes good police work.

“I want our officers to get out of the car and visit with our community members because they’re the ones who are providing us with the feedback that we need to be the best police department that we can be,” he said.

On community engagement

When The Daily Herald sat down with Goetz again in January, he said he plans to keep his philosophy of connecting with the community through the department’s outreach and programs.

“We’re really proud of the fact that our crime rate has gone down, that the data shows that it’s gone down, but what is really the most important and challenging thing for us is how people feel about crime,” Goetz said.

In July 2025, an Everett Police Department spokesperson reported to the Community Health and Safety Committee that overall crime in the city is down, with Everett on pace to have the lowest rate of violent crime in the last seven years by over 30%.

Goetz looks to community-oriented policing by stationing officers throughout the community, whether that’s during events, in parks during the summer, or just mingling with community members outside of 911 incidents, as a way to give residents a sense of safety and security.

Goetz refers to his time as a school resource officer, where he got to show young people the human side of police work, as one of his best experiences.

“Youth is the future of, not just our community, but our country,” Goetz said. “Developing relationships with young people has always been a cornerstone of me, personally, as a law enforcement officer.”

The department, alongside the mayor, has been focusing on reducing youth violence through prevention first, intervention where possible and enforcement as a last resort, he said.

In March 2025, Franklin issued her mayoral directive to reemphasise youth safety. The directive cited programs like School Resource Officers and the Latino Civic Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to providing advocacy and support to the Latino community, as partnerships that contribute to the goal of prevention.

The Everett Police Department is looking to fill one more school resource officer position in the next year and is talking with the director of the Latino Civic Alliance in order to “keep our youth involved in activities that are healthy and help them thrive,” Goetz said.

He pointed to other youth programs the department has developed, including the Casino Road Youth Soccer Camp and the Police STEM Academy, which teaches participants how science, technology, engineering and math play a role in law enforcement.

On the department’s programs

Since 2019, staffing has been a struggle at the Everett Police Department. Goetz said on Wednesday that the department plans to swear in eight new officers.

“We’re down to 14, maybe 13 vacancies at this point, depending upon what day of the week it is,” Goetz said. “We have a little bit more work to do in that area, but I know the hard work that our staff has been doing to get quality candidates.”

Goetz hopes to get the number of vacancies into the single digits in 2026.

Another goal is honing the programs the department already has, like the Drones as First Responders program, he said.

“Right now, we’re a little bit beyond the crawl phase and almost to the walk phase,” Goetz said. “We still have a couple of drone docks that need to be deployed in our central area of town.”

In June 2025, the department launched two drones in north and south Everett to respond to emergency calls across the city as part of a two-year program with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based automated surveillance tools company. In 2024, the department installed more than 70 Flock license plate recognition cameras and three “pan-tilt-zoom” cameras throughout Everett.

The use of Flock Safety cameras has been controversial, with records showing federal agencies gained access to Flock networks throughout Snohomish County. In November, DeRousse told the city council the department is testing an automated audit system to review every search to its network, which would flag unclear search reasons for further review.

The drones have led to success stories, Goetz said, citing two burglary suspects who were located using the drone’s thermal camera hiding on a roof in December. Officers booked both suspects into Snohomish County Jail on suspicion of an attempted burglary of a closed property after hours in North Everett, according to an Everett Police Department social media post.

As his first week as chief comes to a close, Goetz said it’s been busy, but he feels grateful for the opportunity.

“I get up every morning still excited to come to work,” he said. “I think that’s really important, and that’s what I hope to build while I’m here, is that same excitement.”

Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan