Stephen Watson is a recently retired Chief of Police with nearly 25 years of full-time professional law enforcement experience. Steve began his policing career in 1998 with the Santa Cruz County (CA) Sheriff’s Office, where he worked for over seven years as a deputy sheriff and sergeant. He joined the Eureka Police Department in 2005, where he steadily rose through the ranks, serving as a patrol officer, field training officer (FTO/corporal), sergeant, detective sergeant, and captain. Steve established and supervised EPD’s acclaimed Problem-Oriented Policing Unit (POP). As a captain, he served as the commander overseeing the department’s media and public relations, training, recruiting, volunteer program, Criminal Investigations Section, POP Unit, and Field Operations Division, among many other collateral duties.
Steve was appointed as Eureka’s Chief of Police in 2017, a position he held until his retirement on December 1, 2022. Steve has a proven track record as an innovative, inclusive, and strategic leader. As a highly visible and approachable Chief, he was dedicated to working collaboratively to foster community and officer safety and wellness. Steve worked tirelessly to develop a community-oriented force committed to positive police-public relationships built on mutual partnership, understanding, and trust.
During his first 12-months as Chief of Police, Steve envisioned and created the department's innovative and highly successful Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET). CSET aims to proactively address and improve quality of life, crime and disorder problems while implementing innovative strategies that go upstream of the "tragic triad" of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. CSET embraces a co-responder model that pairs trained police officers with mental health professionals, social workers, and homeless outreach specialists.
Steve graduated from the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute (SBSLI) and the California Police Chiefs Executive Leadership Institute at Drucker (Claremont Graduate University. He earned a Master of Science in Law Enforcement and Public Safety Leadership through the University of San Diego’s highly ranked LEPSL program (August 2022). Steve’s professional certifications include a California Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and California POST Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Supervisory, Management, and Executive certificates.
Steve has extensive training, experience, and expertise in numerous areas, including executive leadership and management, community-oriented policing and problem solving, crisis intervention, de-escalation, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), administrative and criminal investigations, recruiting and retention, budgeting, fiscal management, training, media/public relations, and homeless response strategies. As he embarks on Chapter 2 of his life and career, Steve continues to seek new adventures, opportunities, and challenges that advance the noble profession of policing and he'd love to partner with you and your organization to this end.
Chief Watson currently serves as a part-time associate faculty member in the College of the Redwoods Administration of Justice program where he is a Basic Law Enforcement Academy instructor specializing in Leadership, Professionalism, and Ethics (Learning Domain 1) and Use of force/De-escalation (Learning Domain 20).