New chief leads Gunnison police department

Sam Costello, the City of Gunnison’s new police chief, accepted his oath of office on Tuesday, April 8.

Former, long-serving police chief Keith Robinson retired at the start of 2025. After a year-long process to find a replacement, Gunnison City Council welcomed Costello and his family to Gunnison with a ceremony at City Hall last week. Costello was joined by friends and colleagues from Olympia. 

“Chief Costello is the leader that this community deserves, and I remain grateful that he chose us and to call this place his home and serve our community,” said City Manager Amanda Wilson.

Costello attended his first year of college at Western Colorado University, but ultimately earned a Master of Arts degree in Organizational Leadership from Chapman University in California. He is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Virginia.

Costello started his policing career in 1996 as a community service officer for the Lacey, Washington Police Department at the age of 22. Two years later, he joined the Olympia Police Department where he moved up through the ranks over the course of almost three decades. Prior to his move to Gunnison, he served as the deputy chief of police. The Times sat down with Costello to talk about what drew him back to the Gunnison Valley and what it means to be a community police officer. 

(Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

Tell me a little bit more about yourself and what brought you back to the Gunnison Valley. 

I was born and raised in Olympia, Washington, and lived there for most of my adult life. I came here for my first year of college in 1994, spent a year at Western and left to go back home. But I've regretted it my entire adult life. Our kids are grown up and off to college, and we decided that was time for a change. When I was here in college, it was not the easiest time of my life. And while I acknowledge that I had a lot of privilege growing up, that was a period where a couple of things were just not going quite right. I happened to be here when those things all kind of came to a head. There were people in this community — I don't think they knew it — that bent over backward to make sure that I was okay. Part [of returning] is the natural beauty. Part is the outdoor recreation. But a larger part of it is the people. Some people say ‘Why do you want to be the chief in Gunnison?’ And it really isn't about being the chief. I love policing. I always have. But it needs to be in a place that you can commit to 100%. That's what I was looking at. If I'm going to leave a place that I love, and I do love Olympia, it's got to be a place that I love as much and that I can commit to as fully. 

What does being a community police officer mean to you? 

For me, it's really about being a part of the community when I’m not at work, whether that means volunteering, being at basketball or football games or at events. I would prefer that we not be viewed as policing the community as much as being a part of the community and understanding the problems. I truly believe that in order for police departments to be successful, they have to be custom fit to the communities that they serve.

What do you consider one of the most valuable things you learned from moving in the ranks as a police officer in the area where you grew up? 

It was the development of an understanding that people don't always have an inherent trust of the police. They may have different familial or personal experiences with the police that mean that they don't necessarily have that feeling that I thought they did when I was a kid. Trust, community and involvement. These things are earned. They are not a byproduct of putting a badge on.

Fentanyl has trickled into the valley. What is your experience with drug enforcement in a smaller community?

I do believe that targeting people that are selling, transporting, housing and involved in those sorts of systems — the delivery of drugs — is a place for law enforcement to be involved. In certain circumstances, the possession of drugs, and particularly fentanyl, there may be a place for police in that, but I don't know that it's a bottom-up solution. I think it's more of a top-down solution with regard to trying to intervene. In Olympia, we had a significant problem with fentanyl. I think it was intertwined with homelessness. And when people are houseless, it's often for the reason of mental illness crises, or socioeconomic or financial factors. And then one of the big kickers is substance use disorder. We saw a lot of that there, and had a number of programs that were very successful that we might be able to replicate here. [It was] more of a community response to substance use disorder, rather than an enforcement response. I think there needs to be a combination of both, because for some people, an enforcement intervention is what works. It's what's right for them. But for some others, what they need is a medical intervention. Then there's the emergency response part of it, the Naloxone part of it. All of our officers had at least two doses of Naloxone on them at all times. And oftentimes we were the first ones there, just by the nature of the way the system worked. And so we saved a lot of people in that way. But it takes a culture of understanding substance use disorder in order to respond and intervene in an overdose. There is a lot of property crime, and things like that, that go along with drug use in an attempt to sustain that substance use disorder. That certainly cannot be ignored. So you can't take enforcement out of any part of this equation. But the way through this is looking for the right solution for the person in front of you. 

Any fun facts you’d like to share?

I love baseball. I have an older brother and some years ago, we decided that we were going to try to see every Major League Baseball stadium together. Every summer, we fly to a different metropolitan area, because that's where the big stadiums are, and we rent a car. We wing it with very few plans other than we know when the games are and try to eat local. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. We're 26 stadiums into 31 if you count Arlington, (which they built a new one during the course of this whole thing). One of my most prized possessions is: Every time we went to a stadium, I would get the patch from the team that played there and put it on the jersey. And then they started to bleed into the front, and then on the sleeves and so on and so forth. This jersey is getting very heavy at this point.

(Bella Biondini can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or bella@gunnisontimes.com.)