The Office of the Chief is responsible for overall administration and leadership of the police department, ensuring the department is aligned with the City Council’s Strategic Direction of providing cost effective municipal police services and police related infrastructure through the optimal use of department resources, continual measurement of quality of services and fostering community engagement establishing a customer centric organization.
Chief Daniel W. Slaughter
A graduate of Largo High School and the University of South Florida, Chief Daniel Slaughter began his career with the Clearwater Police Department in October 1992. Promoted to sergeant in 2000, Chief Slaughter served in a variety of assignments, including as the department’s accreditation manager, successfully gaining re-accreditation status for the department in June 2007.
In 2009, Chief Slaughter was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to command the Special Operations Section. As part of that assignment, he managed the public safety planning related to special events within the city of Clearwater that included the Iron-man event, filming of the first Dolphin Tale movie, the Clearwater Jazz Holiday, Fun ‘n Sun concerts and the Clearwater Celebrates America July 4th fireworks event.
In 2012, he was promoted to major and assigned to the Patrol Division, responsible for the deployment and management of the 24-hour uniform operations and the budget for the department’s largest division.
On Aug. 7, 2014, he was sworn in as the Clearwater Police Department’s 13th chief of police, commanding the third-largest law enforcement agency in Pinellas County.
Chief Slaughter serves as an active board member for Clearwater for Youth and Directions for Living. He is also a board member and past president for the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Association, which includes more than 100 law enforcement executives, commanders and public safety professionals from 46 law enforcement entities in nine Florida counties.
The overall administration, philosophy, strategy, and leadership of the department is the responsibility of the chief of police. The Office of Professional Standards reports directly to the chief of police in support of the overall quality control of the police department.
Deputy Chief Michael Walek
The deputy chief serves as the operations chief to the department’s three divisions – Patrol, Criminal Investigations and Support Services.
The mission of the Clearwater Police Department is to consistently provide effective, professional and dependable law enforcement services to every citizen, visitor and business within the city of Clearwater.
Clearwater officers embrace a “preservation-of-all-life” philosophy and practice a community policing approach that is customer-service centric. Clearwater officers make our community better by preventing crime and effectively responding to crime. They are trained to be “community champions” who engage our citizens, solve problems and improve the quality of life in Clearwater.