The head of the Psycho Sniper task force is a native New Yorker and diehard Yankee fan.
Charles Moose, police chief of Montgomery County, Md., was born in Manhattan 49 years ago while his dad was attending Columbia University.
Although the family left the Big Apple while he was still a toddler, he remains a lover of all things New York.
“He was very disappointed this year,” when the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs this year, said Sandra Moose, his wife of 14 years.
Both she and her husband – proud owners of Derek Jeter T-shirts – came to the city to catch a Yankee home game this summer.
During the visit, she said, Moose “went for a run, and went by Ground Zero. He was devastated by the attack,” she said.
Moose may have been born a big-city boy, but he wasn’t raised one.
After his family left the city, they settled in the tiny rural town of Lexington, N.C., where Moose attended segregated schools until the seventh grade.
When it came time to go to college, he chose Chapel Hill, where he earned a degree in U.S. history with hopes of going on to law school.
But he got sidelined.
In his senior year, he was offered extra credit if he took a police exam. He took it – and ended up being offered a job as a cop in Portland, Ore.
He had no idea where Portland was. But he took the job, figuring he’d walk a beat for a few years and then switch from law-enforcement to law.
But he remained at the police job for 24 years, the last six as Portland’s first African-American police chief.
Instead of law school, he earned a master’s degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in urban studies/criminology.
He also married, had two sons, divorced and then exchanged vows with Sandra.
He also became an innovator.
Five months after being named chief in Portland, he and Sandra gave up their comfortable life in suburbia and bought a bungalow in an inner-city neighborhood known for gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers.
They renovated the house and became part of the community – and within a year the neighborhood’s crime rate had dropped 55 percent.
Moose said he did it to demonstrate his commitment to community policing and to prove that cops could have a positive impact in the city’s crime-ridden areas.
Despite his success in lowering the crime rate and strengthening community ties with police, his relations within his department were often shaky – largely because of his volatile temper and emotional outbursts.
He spoke his mind, and sometimes shed tears – something he’s continued to do at his sniper task-force press briefings.
He was disciplined four times for flare-ups in Portland. All four incidents involved people he believed were discriminating against him, according to The Oregonian newspaper in Portland.
In 1999, he began looking for another job. But he didn’t pursue the Montgomery County post, although it had been advertised nationally. He thought it wasn’t big-city enough for him.
But the job came to him.
The firm hired to conduct the candidate search brought him to the attention of County Executive Doug Duncan.
Duncan was intrigued by Moose’s innovations in community policing – an area in which Montgomery County needed help. Its police department was under attack – and under federal civil-rights review – because of complaints that it mistreated minority residents.
Duncan convinced Moose to take the job, which pays $160,000 a year.
Since his arrival in 1999, Moose has reformed and energized the department and has improved its reputation.
He’s popular with his 1,074-member force, knows most of his officers by name – and sends them cards on their birthdays.
He also tries to keep a low profile and contain his volatile temper.