Chief's Message

Chief Cherise Giordani Gause is a proven law enforcement executive with three decades of community-driven law enforcement and public safety experience. She began her career with the Miami Police Department in 1993 as a civilian dispatcher and progressively ascended through the ranks. During her tenure, she held assignments that spanned the three divisions of the Miami Police Department: Field Operations, Administration, and Criminal Investigations respectively. In August 2023, she retired from the Miami Police Department at the rank of First Assistant Chief of Police, second in command of the department. She was sworn in as the fifteenth Chief of Police for the North Miami Police Department in August 2023. She is passionate about public safety, community policing/engagement, and constitutional policing. 

Chief Gause is a second-generation Haitian-American born in New York. She moved to South Florida at an early age and matriculated through the Miami-Dade County Public School System. She earned a Master of Science degree in Organizational Leadership from Union Institute and University, a Bachelor of Public Administration degree from Barry University, and an Associate’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Miami-Dade College. She is also a graduate of the prestigious FBI National Academy, The Senior Management Institute for Police, the Command Officer Development Course from the Southern Police Institute (S.P.I.) in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Police Executive Leadership Institute (PELI). 

Chief Gause has received numerous leadership and community service awards, including, Legacy Magazine South Florida’s “50 Most Powerful Black Leaders in Business & Industry” 2020, Women of the Year N.Y.P.D. Haitian-American Law Enforcement Fraternal Organization 2019, and Legacy Magazine Miami’s “Most Influential and Prominent Black Women in Business and Industry” 2019. 

She is a member of several professional organizations, including but not limited to, Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police, where she serves on the Community Relations Committee, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives (NAWLEE) Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). She also demonstrates her civic advocacy through memberships with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and Jack & Jill of America Inc.