New Dallas police monitor eager to begin work

DALLAS - The new police monitor for the city of Dallas was welcomed on Tuesday by the board she will oversee.

Tonya McClary was chosen after a months-long search and starts work later this month. She believes the climate is ripe for change and people recognize something needs to happen and she hopes to be that solution.

McClary calls herself both a community whisperer and a police whisperer. She will have to work with both as Dallas’ first police monitor.

“This role is very important. I think it’s very hard for people to understand oversight,” McClary said.

She was welcomed at the community police oversight board meeting Tuesday night to a role that is not new to her. The pastor and former lawyer mostly recently worked as the police monitor for New Orleans.

“We were very involved in monitoring the investigations, we were there from the very beginning as far as officer involved shootings, being on the scene,” McClary said.

In Dallas, she will work out of City Hall and report to the city manager.

She will conduct investigations recommended by the Community Police Oversight Board and make recommendations to the police department -- investigations like the in-custody death of Diamond Ross. That was the first approved by the board and one that started with hiring an independent investigator, because McClary had not yet been hired.

But she says she’s done her homework.

“I’m doing a lot of things in advance. I’m trying to study the city, find out about all the different groups that brought us together, find out all the key players,” McClary said.

McClary anticipates being proactive in her role.

“Very. I am very hands on. My colleagues in the New Orleans police department know that when we’re out, I’m like on their heel. They’re not going to make a move without me being there,” McClary said.