Sumner’s interim Police Chief Brad Moericke has served two sides of the justice system

The law enforcement officer and former deputy prosecutor is plugging the gap left by John Galle's move to city administration.

With former chief John Galle permanently shifted over to the city administrator role, Deputy Chief Brad Moericke has taken over as Interim Police Chief of the Sumner Police Department. And there he will remain, until Mayor David Enslow decides to make the position permanent or initiate a candidate search.

Moericke’s adjusted just fine in the mean time.

“There’s certainly more engagement with city staff in this position,” he said. “On the other hand, me and John were pretty good at splitting those duties up between the two of us. So it wasn’t a big adjustment to move into this role.”

Immediately prior to becoming the acting police chief, Moericke had graduated from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy in Quantico, Va. The academy is a training opportunity offered to 200 law enforcement personnel across the globe each year.

“It’s a special course designed back in 1935 by J. Edgar Hoover, and the FBI opens it up to future law enforcement leaders from all over,” Moericke said. “We trained right there, we lived in barracks, and they paid for all of it.”

Moericke has had a long and winding career with law enforcement.

He began at age 19 as a live-in firefighter in Sumner while he took classes in Tacoma. A year later, he was in dispatch for both police and fire emergency services. At age 21, in 1990, Moericke was hired to the police department by Chief Ron Hysland.

“Back then, (the shifts) were the nature of civil service,” Moericke said. “There was an aptitude test for policing, I took it and came out pretty high on the list.”

Moericke turned down an offer by the fire department and became a patrolman. He was promoted to Sergeant in 1995, but left by 1998 to focus on his family store in Seattle and pursue higher education.

He completed his bachelor’s degree that year and moved on to Seattle University’s School of Law, where he graduated with his juris doctor in 2002.

Moericke became a practicing attorney, working for the National Labor Relations Board and then becoming a deputy Pierce County Prosecutor.

Moericke also served as an appointed member of Seattle’s Office of Professional Accountability Review Board—a watchdog for the police internal investigations process. He was a member of the board in 2007 when it issued a scathing report of Seattle PD’s investigation into Gregory Neubert and Michael Tietjen.

“(Sitting on the board) really made me appreciate the quality of a smaller organization,” he said.

After stepping down the following year, friends in the Sumner department advised him of the opening chief position. Moericke was in the running, but came short of Galle in the final selection. Shortly afterward, the Deputy Chief postition was created and he won the job.