Trevor Womack’s path to becoming Salem’s police chief started “with nothing but a high school diploma, following in my dad’s footsteps.” In just over two months, Womack’s time as chief will come to an end. On Tuesday, March 10, the city announced Womack’s retirement from the Sale m Police Department, ending his 34-year career in law enforcement. “There’s no career like this,” Womack said in an interview Monday, March 9. “It’s an incredible career. Thankful and grateful that I had the honor of serving this way, especially these last five years.” What to know After five years leading the Salem Police Department, Chief Trevor Womack retires May 22. Assistant Police Chief Brandon Ditto will lead the department as interim chief for at least six months. Womack focused on decreasing shootings and officer use of force, and using data to guide policing decisions. Being Salem’s police chief was the “highest honor,” he said. Womack’s time as chief saw the start of an initiative to address community violence. That came after an uptick in shootings and increased youth involvement in violence in the years immediately following the Covid pandemic. During his tenure, shootings by police officers also fell. He worked to modernize policing by using data to guide enforcement and policies.  His leadership started amid social justice protests demanding change from law enforcement. As chief, he led Salem police through a city financial crisis that improved last year after voters agreed to increase property taxes, in part to avoid public safety cuts. Womack often pointed to police understaffing as a challenge that slowed efforts to implement solutions during his time in Salem. He will stay on until May 22, then return to Stockton, California, where he grew up. The Stockton Police Department is where he spent the first 28 years of his law enforcement career and served as a deputy police chief before coming to Salem.  “It’s time for me to invest more time in my family after working a very busy, you know, stressful job, and challenging career for a long time, for 34 years now. It’s time to, you know, pay more attention to my family,” Womack said. Under city code, the Salem police chief is appointed to the position by the city manager, usually after interviews with department leadership.  Assistant Chief Brandon Ditto will serve as interim chief for at least six months once Womack steps down while city officials consider finding permanent leadership, the city’s statement said. “I have greatly appreciated Chief Womack’s analytical approach and intellectual curiosity. Every conversation with him yielded thoughtful suggestions and new ways to serve our community,” City Manager Krishna Namburi said in the city’s statement. Womack’s current salary as chief is $245,630, according to this year’s city budget. Ahead of the announcement, Salem Reporter sat down with Womack to discuss his time as chief, the steps he took to modernize through policy and data and what he sees for the future of Salem police. Starting out Womack came to Salem after former Chief Jerry Moore retired from the agency in late 2020. Moore had been with Salem police for over 40 years. Womack started as chief on Dec. 8, 2020. At the time, protests over police use of force were a regular occurrence and the Salem Police Department was accused of treating Black Lives Matter protesters differently than armed right-wing groups like the Proud Boys. Both Moore and Womack defended police against those accusations. Months after stepping in as chief, Womack told Salem Reporter he would prioritize building public trust, strengthening community relationships and improving data tracking and transparency. On Monday, he said another large goal of his was to address staffing challenges and maintain 80 officers on patrol, which the department did in 2025 for the first time in at least five years. “There (were) things that I hoped we could accomplish and move towards as an organization, and to start to hit some of those milestones in 2025 gives me a good sense of, you know, pride in the organization,” Womack said. Working toward those goals amid the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests, which strongly criticized law enforcement, taught Womack about “managing during chaos” and developing smart policies quickly, he said. When Moore stepped down in 2020, he stressed to Womack that the key to succeeding as Salem’s police chief is the relationships within the community, Moore told Salem Reporter at the time. Coming from California, Womack quickly started identifying ways to build his own relationships with the community.  One of those efforts was establishing a community advisory board, a process he started several months into the job and something he has maintained throughout his time in Salem. The 11-member board includes local figures from education, family services, faith organizations and housing. They help review policies and officer training. “How do we build trust where we need to build trust? That’s (an) intentional thought process,” Womack said. His leadership approach also drew from years of experience in Stockton, where both data and community partnerships were key to informing police on how to address local issues and work on public trust. Reducing shootings One of the biggest efforts Womack helped lead is the Community Violence Reduction Initiative, a collaboration between local governments and organizations to address gun violence and youth at risk of becoming involved with crime. That work followed a 2023 report that found gun violence had doubled since 2018, driven by the number of teenagers arrested for serious assaults tripling in the same period. The initiative launched in June 2024 and brought together Salem-area law enforcement agencies to work with service providers and community groups, including Community Business and Education Leaders, churches and neighborhood family councils.  Following a consultant’s recommendations, police have been involved in public forums, peace walks and increasing patrol presence in areas vulnerable to violence. Northeast and downtown Salem are the two areas with the most violence and 911 calls. Part of that work took place in summer 2024 as Salem police spent more time proactively checking on minors on local parole and probation at high risk for violence. Womack presented data on that work to city officials in late 2024, which included decreases in fatal and non-fatal shootings. In 2025, the city saw its first major drop in violent crime since at least 2011, a crime report released earlier this year showed. That was largely driven by a significant reduction in aggravated assaults, which include shootings, stabbings and other assaults with serious injuries. Last year, the city saw 171 fewer aggravated assaults than in 2024, the report said. Another key recommendation was to hire a designated city employee to coordinate the initiative,  with a large focus on intervening with those at high risk of violence prevent further death and injury. That position was never able to be filled. Last summer, as city officials stepped away from leading the initiative, Womack cited police understaffing, saying his department wouldn’t have enough resources to coordinate that work. Community organizations have since picked up the task, and will soon start meetings with at-risk teenagers and young men to talk with them directly about avoiding violence and making different life choices.  Salem police will attend those meetings to represent the criminal justice system alongside community members, who’ll talk to the young men about impacts of violence. Although law enforcement attendance will be limited, Womack said the meetings can provide a “joint message from your criminal justice system and your community, that we care about you, we’re here to provide services.” “We’re also just reminding you that there’s consequences if you engage in violence,” Womack said. Community speakers could include people like a mother of a son who was a victim of violence or a nurse who’s treated shooting victims who can speak to the grief and trauma violence causes. The meetings, which will be led by Community Business and Education Leaders, will take place three times a year, and the first is planned for late April. Police staffing Womack has historically been vocal about police understaffing. His agency saw a record high of 26 vacancies around 2021. City councilors cut four vacant positions in 2024 as part of a larger round of city budget cuts. The department currently has 13 open positions, but Womack expects that should fluctuate and stay around 10, which is the goal vacancy rate. To encourage more hiring, staff made the application process more friendly and efficient, added recruitment events and was more publicly welcoming to diverse applicants, Womack said. He compared those efforts to getting a machine up and running. “It takes a long time just to get the engine running at this sort of pace,” he said. “There’s a point where you reach this pace where you finally got there, and you need to keep it going, because if you stop, it takes so much longer to get it going again.” He believes the department will continue the same recruitment efforts unless the open positions get filled. When the city was facing a major budget shortfall in 2025, officials were told to cut nonessential services, including its Community Policy Academy and officer attendance at neighborhood meetings. But after Salem voters passed the tax levy last May, the city’s general fund was freed up for other purposes including public safety. Five months later, the Salem City Council approved a six-month expansion of the police team that works with connecting people at homeless camps to services. The Homeless Services Team doubled in size to four officers and now works seven days a week. Another way Womack worked to strengthen the relationship between police and the community was improving communications with the public and media, he said. During the protests in the pandemic, police leaders started addressing public questions about officer responses to calls, and improving internal communications with the city council and other partners. “One thing we realized is that it’s just as important to invest in communications capacity at a speed and quality level just for that trust-building effort and to be effective,” he said.  Womack has continued that practice recently as some in Salem have questioned police officers’ role in federal immigration actions or called on local police to enforce traffic laws against federal agents. Womack has maintained his agency does not assist in immigration enforcement or collect information about immigration status. City officials have also maintained local police can’t interfere with federal immigration enforcement operations or detain federal agents. Improving transparency, using data Improving data collection and information sharing was another large goal Womack brought to Salem. Under his leadership, the department has started publishing more information about law enforcement, including an annual crime report and a strategic plan every three years. “It’s bigger than just pushing information out. For a relationship, you have to have a conversation. So how do we create the spaces where there’s a two-way conversation happening? That’s labor intensive sometimes, but we do more of that,” Womack said. Department leaders now hold monthly meetings with regional law enforcement agencies to share data, along with monthly meetings with local service providers. Both meetings are chances for agencies and organizations to share information and collaborate on strategies to address individual cases and broader issues. “So on a more real-time basis, you’re making decisions based on what’s really happening and whether what you’re doing is even working,” Womack said, referring to the meetings with other law enforcement agencies. “We weren’t doing that before. We are making decisions based on the data in a much more real-time way, which lets us be more effective with our resources.” When Womack came to the department, it had never pulled together a comprehensive plan setting goals for the future. He spent his first year as chief leading work to assemble the agency’s first strategic plan – a document identifying key issues and goals for the next three years and outlining strategies to achieve them. Womack also started the publication of annual crime statistics looking back at 15-year trends. The most recent analysis, published in February, showed a 17% decrease in overall crime, with record decreases in violent and property crimes. The drops reflect the city’s first significant decrease in serious assaults in years and a continual decline in thefts and arson. Womack also advocated for a review of every one of the department’s policies, about 200 in total. In 2024, Salem police contracted with a consulting company which reviewed each policy to ensure they were up to current legal and industry standards. “One of the checkboxes, as far as how this process goes, is …  How do we put the lens for trust building on the policy? Is there anything related to active listening and making fair decisions and treating people with dignity and respect?” Womack said. Some of the biggest policy changes were shaped by officers’ previous deescalation training that the department hosted in 2021.  The updated use of force policy now urges officers to use non-violent alternatives and deescalation tactics instead of force when possible in high-risk situations. The department also tightened rules for when officers can initiate car chases, an effort to prevent dangerous high-speed pursuits that can harm officers and bystanders. Early in Womack’s time as chief, between 2021 and 2023, Salem police officers fired a weapon 12 times in three years. In 2024, the department reported only one incident where officers shot someone. Womack credits that to how deescalation training has been included throughout the department’s rewritten and updated policies, along with adding risk assessments in 2021 and body cameras in 2023.  Salem’s SWAT team has also been deployed more often, which reduces the risk of violence by having specially trained responders at a scene rather than a patrol officer. For the first time in its history, the department published every policy online for the public to access. Police want “to be fully transparent with the community about our policies,” Womack told Salem Reporter in July 2025. Womack helped modernize technology systems, including records management, dispatch and online crime reporting. Last May, Salem police launched a new online system for people to report non-emergency crimes at any time. Many of the changes Womack oversaw to bring in a “contemporary, modern way of policing” are things he believes the entire law enforcement profession should be doing. He is confident that whoever leads the department next will see the value of the changes he made. “As far as erasing any of it or making a drastic change, I don’t think so. I think it’s really become part of the organization, it’s the right fit for Salem,” Womack said. Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected]. LOCAL NEWS DELIVERED TO YOU: Subscribe to Salem Reporter and get all the fact-based Salem news that matters to you. Fair, accurate, trusted – SUBSCRIBE. The post Salem police chief to retire in May appeared first on Salem Reporter. ...read more read less