Jan. 10, 2003: Just days after Mayor David N. Cicilline takes office, he introduces Dean M. Esserman as the new police chief to turn around the troubled department that had been wracked with scandal. Esserman, an Ivy League educated ex-prosecutor from New York City, had served as the police chief in Stamford, Conn., and arrived with the reputation as a taskmaster who had successfully cleaned up other police forces. At the introductory news conference in the city’s public safety complex, Cicilline called Esserman “the best chief in the country.”

June 14, 2009: Active and retired officers gathered at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge and overwhelmingly voted “no confidence” in Esserman. The final tally was 303 to 134, a ratio of nearly 2 1/2 to 1.