The modern police chiefs

1970 – today

Marciniak and the long apprenticeship: The modern succession first stands clear in December 1995, when the Common Council passed Resolution 2312-95 commending Ronald G. Marciniak, chief of police for more than seven years by then. Marciniak's career, as the resolution recites it, is the department's own ideal of the service: appointed a patrol officer on 16 July 1970, he served in every rank of the department on the way to its command. His 1995 command staff is named in the same instrument — Larry E. Wolvos the Services Division, and Donald A. Ruszkowski the Investigative Division — and the staff matters to the succession twice over: Bennett was the next-but-one chief, and Ruszkowski was the father of the sixty-second.

Gunn, Bennett, Fautz: Between Marciniak's commendation and the century's end the command passed to Darrell Gunn; the exact years of Gunn's chiefship, and the seam where Marciniak's ended, are not fixed in the sources reached for this section and are printed as open. What is documented is the handover at the decade's end: Larry Bennett and Uniform Division Chief Larry Blume replaced Gunn and Brent Hemmerlein, and Bennett — the Uniform Division chief of the 1995 staff — retired in 2002 after thirty-three years in the department, nearly three of them as its chief. Thomas Fautz, a division chief from 1997 to 2002 by the federal court filings in the tapes case, held the chief's office after Bennett, to 2007.

Boykins, the first Black chief: Darryl Boykins joined the department in 1984 — patrol, K-9 handler, detective — and under Mayor Luecke became the first Black chief of police in South Bend's history. The year of his taking command is carried in the record two ways, and both are printed: his Tribune obituary states that he made history as the first Black chief in 2007, and the New York Times account of his fall likewise counts him promoted to chief five years before March 2012; the summary record of the Buttigieg mayoralty dates his first appointment to 2008. What followed is the city's defining modern controversy and is not retold here: reappointed by Mayor Buttigieg at the start of 2012, Boykins was removed as chief that March in the police-tapes affair, demoted to captain, and retired from the department in 2017. The tapes case entire — the recordings, the council's suit, the settlements, and the federal court's destruction order of 2026 — stands in City Controversies. Boykins died on 13 December 2024, and the obituary's judgment was the department's own: the first, and as of that writing the only, Black chief of police the city has had.

Hurley, Teachman, Ruszkowski: The interregnum has a name in the mayor's own paper: the release of 21 August 2012 launching the search for Boykins's successor introduces the process "alongside Interim Chief of Police Chuck Hurley." The search ended with Ron Teachman, a thirty-four-year veteran of the New Bedford, Massachusetts police — its chief from 2006 to 2011 — appointed in January 2013 as South Bend's sixty-first chief, and the first to hold a law degree; he left on 30 September 2015 for the ShotSpotter company, and the council's Resolution 15-84 of 28 September 2015 marks the change. On 1 October 2015 command passed to Scott Ruszkowski, the sixty-second chief by the city's own numbering: a South Bend officer since the late 1980s — corporal 1992, sergeant 1999, lieutenant commanding Street Crimes 2005, captain 2011, Uniform Division chief 2013, a graduate of the FBI National Academy in 2006 — and the son of the Investigative Division chief of 1995. He holds the department still as this record closes; what the voters made of him in November 2026 stands in the sheriffs' entry below.

The first woman division chief: The department's ranks below the chief carry one verified first of the present decade: in the command-staff announcement of 26 October 2026, Maranda Baker was promoted to chief of the Patrol Division — the first woman to hold a division chief's title in the department's history. A generation earlier Lynn Coleman, an officer from 1977 to 2000 whose profile stands in the People section, had served as a division chief before the title's first woman arrived — Coleman was a man, and the distinction the 2026 announcement draws is exact: division chiefs there had been; a woman among them there had not.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Resolution No. 2312-95 (18 December 1995; city document archive) — commendation of Chief Ronald G. Marciniak, seven-plus years as chief, appointed patrol officer 16 July 1970, service in every rank; the 1995 command staff: Bennett, Wolvos, Donald A. Ruszkowski.
2. South Bend Tribune (2002), as indexed in the ProQuest/MBRL record — Larry Bennett's retirement after 33 years, nearly three as chief; the replacement of Gunn and Hemmerlein by Bennett and Blume.
3. United States District Court filings, No. 3:12-cv-475 — Thomas Fautz as police chief 2004–2006, division chief 1997–2002 (the chiefship carried to 2007 in the succession).
4. South Bend Tribune obituary of Darryl Boykins (17 December 2024) — joined the department 1984; first Black chief of police, 2007; demoted in the tapes affair; retired 2017; died 13 December 2024. The appointment year 2008 as carried in the summary record of the Buttigieg mayoralty is printed against it in the entry.
5. City of South Bend, mayoral release, 21 August 2012 (city document archive) — Interim Chief of Police Chuck Hurley; the search process. Common Council minutes, 28 September 2015 — Resolution 15-84 and the Teachman departure.
6. City of South Bend, mayoral releases, 18 September and 1 October 2015 (city document archive) — Scott Ruszkowski, 62nd chief, taking command 1 October 2015; his ranks and dates; his father's 1995 division command. South Bend Police Department command-staff announcement (26 October 2026) — Maranda Baker, first woman division chief.