High-ranking Columbia police officer a finalist for chief’s job in a major U.S. city
A high-ranking Columbia law enforcement officer is in the running to be the next police chief in a larger U.S. city.
Columbia Police Department Deputy Chief Melron Kelly, who has been with the capital city department for nearly a quarter century, is among four finalists to be the next police chief in St. Louis, Missouri. Mayor Tishaura Jones announced the finalists for St. Louis’ top cop job in a Monday news release.
St. Louis has been conducting a national search for a new police chief following the retirement of previous Chief John Hayden. Aside from Kelly, other finalists for the position include former Norfolk, Virginia, Chief Larry Boone; interim St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack; and Wilmington, Delaware, Police Chief Robert Tracy.
“I’m just excited for the opportunity and thankful to have been selected as a finalist,” Kelly told The State on Tuesday morning.
Kelly, 45, has been a mainstay in Columbia’s police department, where he has worked since 1999. He has been the deputy chief for a number of years, and he is the second-in-command to Chief Skip Holbrook.
A graduate of the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy, Kelly has a bachelor’s degree from South Carolina State University and a masters from the University of Louisville.
Kelly climbed his way up the ladder in the Columbia department over the last 23 years, starting with his first assignment as an officer in the Waverly neighborhood and the sprawling, now-demolished Gonzales Gardens housing projects and continuing up to become one of the city’s top-ranking officers.
Other department assignments in Columbia through the years for Kelly have included posts in the narcotics division, in the gang unit and as a captain overseeing the patrol division.
The candidates for the St. Louis job were set to participate in a community forum there on Tuesday night, according to the release from Jones’ office. Kelly said he would participate in the forum virtually, as he had a homicide trial to attend to in Columbia on Tuesday.
St. Louis is more than double the size of Columbia, with nearly 294,000 residents. Columbia has nearly 138,000 residents, per census data. A 2020 story from CBS cited FBI violent crime statistics in listing St. Louis as the second most dangerous city in the U.S., with a violent crime rate of 1,927 per 100,000 people. Columbia ranked No. 48 on that same list. There have been 183 murders in St. Louis this year, per St. Louis Police Department statistics.
This story was originally published December 6, 2022 at 10:41 AM.
