Former Boise police chief Ryan Lee lands a new job at a big-city police department
Former Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee has been hired by the Baltimore Police Department to serve as its chief of detectives, according to a Wednesday news release from the department.
Lee is completing the certification requirements of the Maryland Police Training Commission, and in the meantime serves as a “professional member” of the department, according to the release.
Lee resigned from Boise’s Police Department in 2022 at the request of Mayor Lauren McLean after nine officers contacted the Office of Police Accountability to report allegations against him, the Idaho Statesman reported at the time.
Among these was an allegation in a lawsuit that Lee “accosted” an officer during a demonstration of a neck hold, causing injuries, the Statesman reported. Lee filed — and then withdrew — his own lawsuit claiming that the officer was trying to derail his career with a false accusation.
Bill Mauk, an attorney who has represented Lee, told the Statesman in April that the allegations were an “orchestrated effort” to “ruin Ryan Lee’s employment and his career,” and that many of the complaints were nothing but disagreements with Lee’s managerial decisions.
The Baltimore department “is aware of (Lee’s) previous service in Boise, as well as his departure. None of which disqualify him for his new position,” Lindsey Eldridge, a spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department, told the Statesman in an email.
The Baltimore department selected Lee for the role after a four-month hiring process that evaluated eight candidates, according to the department’s release.
Lee “brings a wealth of experience in community policing, fostering partnerships, and developing programs to strengthen trust and collaboration between police and the communities they serve,” the release said.
He “will be taking on a critical role for the department, as we continue to drive historic reductions in violent crime and rebuild trust with the communities we serve,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said in the release.
