Straub named to lead police in Washington city

The Spokane City Council voted 6-0 Monday night to approve Frank Straub as the Washington city's director of law enforcement.

Straub is the former public safety director in Indianapolis.

Straub left the job last month after a threatened vote of no-confidence by the Indianapolis City-County Council, the Spokesman-Review reported.

During a two-year tenure, Straub won praise for bringing reform to the Indianapolis police department, but he had poor relations with the police union.

Straub takes over a department troubled by recent scandals, most notably the death of Otto Zehm, a mentally ill Spokane man who died after he was beaten, shocked and hog-tied by police in 2006. In November, after Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. was convicted of lying to investigators and violating Zehm's civil rights.