A South Florida native and veteran law enforcement official who led the Ferguson Police Department in the wake of civil unrest after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown is set to become the new head of the Miramar Police Department.
Delrish Moss, who grew up in Miami, will be sworn in as police chief on April 13, the department said this week.
Moss’ career in law enforcement started at the Miami Police Department in 1984, where he became a homicide detective a few years later. He went on to work with media in community relations and retired as a major in 2016.
Moss then became the chief of Ferguson Police in 2016, two years after an officer shot and killed Michael Brown. For that post, he was selected over 53 other candidates, Tania Rues, a Miramar Police spokesperson, said in a news release.
He resigned from the Ferguson, Mo., post in 2018 after his mother became ill, returned to Florida and served more recently a captain for Florida International University Police.
Moss, who grew up in Miami and currently lives in Broward County, lived in Miramar in the mid-to-late ’90s and again before he left for Ferguson, he said. He continues to do business in Miramar.
“I feel like it’s home,” Moss told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “When that position became available, I thought it was perfect because it’s like being chief at home.”
Moss said his time in Ferguson was his first experience being in the top position, which “felt like a call to duty,” for him.
He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Black Police Association and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, among other organizations.
Moss will be paid a yearly salary of $181,000, Rues said.
