Kathleen O’Toole, NAWLEE Foundation Vice President

Dr. Kathleen O’Toole, Esquire is a career police officer and lawyer who has earned an international reputation for her principled leadership and reform strategies.  Her most recent position as chief of police was in Seattle WA.  She currently serves on several advisory boards and is a principal at 21CP Consulting.

Kathleen completed a six-year term as Chief Inspector of the Garda Siochana Inspectorate, an oversight body responsible for bringing reform, best practices, and accountability to the 17,000-member Irish national police service.

Prior to serving in Ireland, Kathleen rose through the ranks of local and state policing in the United States. During her police career, Kathleen was assigned to numerous patrol, investigative, undercover, supervisory and management positions. She served as Superintendent (Chief) of the Metropolitan District Commission Police and Lieutenant Colonel overseeing Special Operations in the Massachusetts State Police. She was later appointed Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety (1994) and Boston Police Commissioner (2004). She was the first woman appointed to all of these senior positions.

As Secretary of Public Safety, Kathleen oversaw twenty agencies, boards and commissions with more than ten thousand personnel, including the Massachusetts State Police, the Department of Correction, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Fire Services, the Criminal Justice Training Council, and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. She promoted unprecedented collaboration between government agencies, the private sector, the non-profit community, and academia. She reorganized the Secretariat to promote greater efficiency and was a champion for new technologies. During her tenure, crime dropped dramatically throughout the state and the quality of life improved significantly, particularly in urban neighborhoods.

As Boston Police Commissioner, Kathleen continued to demonstrate principled and effective leadership during very challenging times. She oversaw the successful safety and security operation at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the first presidential nominating convention post-9/11. Working in close collaboration with public and private sector partners, she developed and enhanced prevention and intervention programs to address the root causes of violence in Boston neighborhoods. She spearheaded several reform initiatives and launched the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, one of the nation’s first major city fusion centers.

Kathleen has worked on many high-profile projects. In 1999, she was retained as a consultant to the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to examine New Jersey State Police practices and procedures following serious allegations of police profiling. In 1998-1999, she was a member of the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland (The Patten Commission). The Commission transformed policing there as part of the Peace Process. In 1999, she chaired the Boston Fire Department Review Commission that called for sweeping reforms. In 2009, Kathleen served on a four-person panel that published recommendations for reforming the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Recently, she was a member of the Independent Commission on Policing in England and Wales. The group published its findings in late 2013. She has served as Joint Compliance Expert overseeing an agreement between the US Department of Justice and the Town of East Haven, CT to ensure constitutional policing.

Kathleen earned a BA from Boston College, a JD from New England School of Law, and was admitted to the bar as a practicing attorney in 1982 and she holds a  PhD from the Business School of Trinity College, Dublin. Kathleen attended many executive development programs, including the FBI National Executive Institute, the Program for State Managers at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University, and a senior executive program at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She is a life member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and has served as a member of the Committee on Terrorism since 1999.