Bismarck Officials Continue Interview Process for Police Chief - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

It's a critical day in the search for Bismarck's next chief of police.

The three finalists are going through the final two stages of the interview process today.

Eighty percent of the score comes out of two assessments being done today.

The first involves an accomplishment survey that includes questions from a team of law enforcement and city officials.

The second part of the process puts the finalists in a real life day-to-day scenarios.

I call it sort of a day in the life of a chief where they have to deal with various priorities, whether it's personnel issues, whether it's shooting incident or some other emergency or some other so called community crisis and then they are scored on that in-basket exercise process," says Bismarck City Commissioner Parrell Grossman.

The three finalists include Dan Donlin. He has 24 years of experience with the Bismarck Police Department.

Christopher Elg of Lousisiana has 27 years of experience, and John Zapalac from California brings 32 years of law enforcement experience.

Grossman says scores will be tallied later this week. He hopes to bring a recommendation for hiring to the city commission next Tuesday.