Joel F. Fitzgerald Sr., rejected by former Coatesville City Manager Harry Walker, is now Allentown police chief

“With the unanimous support of City Council, nominee Joel F. Fitzgerald Sr. was confirmed as Allentown's next police chief Wednesday, making him the first minority to hold the post. 

After a brief introduction from Mayor Ed Pawlowski, council voted 6-0 in favor of the new chief with President Julio Guridy voting via phone. Vice President Ray O'Connell was absent from the meeting due to an illness. 

Fitzgerald, 42, has spent the last four years as police chief in a Houston suburb, and he is a 17-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department. Pawlowski nominated him earlier this month after a nearly yearlong search.”

Allentown confirms first minority police chief
Joel F. Fitzgerald Sr., Mayor Pawlowski's nominee, is unanimous choice of City Council. 

By Emily Opilo, Of The Morning Call
9:18 p.m. EST, November 20, 2013

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I believe that when Lt. Fitzgerald of the Philadelphia PD was interviewed by Harry G. Walker at the King of Prussia Mall for the position of Coatesville Chief of Police, Richard Legree accompanied Walker. I think Lt. Fitzgerald said Walker demanded that Fitzgerald appoint Legree as his first Lieutenant or Assistant Chief. Lt. Fitzgerald said “would not hire Legree due to his ‘checkered’ background”. I think that Lt. Fitzgerald may have been referring Legree’s conviction of selling 145 bags of heroin and a separate conviction of selling nine bags of heroin to undercover agents in Coatesville in1975. 

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Some previous actions of Coatesville Police Chief Matthewsand Coatesville City Manager Harry G. Walker:

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“Under Matthews' leadership, about a third of the 34-member department has left. Matthews has attributed the exodus to longtime frustrations; Carroll has linked the trend to Matthews' performance.

Matthews' hiring generated conflict even before he arrived in the former steel town of 11,600. A deputy director at the Police Foundation, a Washington nonprofit, Matthews was not the search committee's top choice.

The group had chosen Philadelphia Police Lt. Joel Fitzgerald, who described a troubling meeting with Coatesville City Manager Harry G. Walker III and Richard Legree, a city power-broker who had multiple run-ins with the law. Legree has since died.

Fitzgerald said he believed Walker derailed his candidacy after Fitzgerald showed no interest in hiring Legree for a position in the department. Walker said in a prepared statement that he took Legree to the meeting so that Fitzgerald would have "an honest appraisal of what the new chief would face in Coatesville in terms of both the crime and the political sentiments.”

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 Coatesville's police chief set to resign next month

 By Kathleen Brady Shea INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

POSTED: March 10, 2009