Assistant Chief of Police Wahid Kazem was hired as a Santa Clara police officer in September of 1996. After several years of working as a patrol and Field Training Officer, in January of 2001, he was selected for an assignment as an assaults and domestic violence detective.

Wahid was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in September of 2002, after finishing atop of the selection process. He returned to the Field Operations Division for a brief stint as a patrol team supervisor, before transferring back to the Investigations Division, where he initially worked as a property crimes investigator. He later became a lead person's crimes investigator working primarily homicide and assault cases.

Wahid took a special interest in working “cold-case” homicides. His work led to the successful prosecution and closure of several cases, including the well-known 1977 murder of 17-year old Santa Clara High school student Mary Quigley. This investigation was later featured on the Investigation Discovery television show Murder Book.

Wahid received the 2005 Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers “Outstanding Service Award” for his dedicated work on solving numerous cold case homicides.

In 2006, Wahid teamed up with a local prosecutor to write the first ever DNA warrant in Santa Clara County. Instead of a normal warrant, which lists a named person, this listed the DNA code of the unidentified suspect found in the discarded mask of an armed bank robber. The groundbreaking warrant allowed investigators to identify and successfully prosecute the suspect for multiple bank robberies several years later.

In 2008, Wahid wrote and submitted a grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice titled “Using DNA to Solve Cold Cases in Santa Clara.” The proposal was awarded $324,000, which created a Cold Case Crimes Team, with a goal to prioritize, review, and investigate unsolved homicide cases that had the potential to be solved using DNA analysis.

In October 2008, Wahid was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. He returned to the Field Operations Division, where he worked as a Watch Commander and oversaw the department's field training program. He brought much needed updates to the program, including the creation of an annual evaluation process of the program.

In March 2011, Wahid returned to the Investigations Division, where he served as the Acting Division Commander until his promotion to Captain in November 2012.

As a Captain, Wahid oversaw the Field Operations Division and later the Administrative Services Division as Commander. He was part of the team that developed the unique policing model to service Levi’s® Stadium, led the police building remodel of 2017 and the acquisition of a multi-million-dollar Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS).

He has also served as the department’s Public Information Officer (PIO) and as the Acting Communications Operations Manager overseeing the 911-Dispatch Center.

Wahid was promoted to Assistant Chief of Police in June of 2020.

Wahid is a proud veteran of the United States Army Reserve having served as a commissioned officer until his Honorable Discharge in July of 2003. He has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from San Jose State University. He is a graduate of the prestigious FBI National Academy held at Quantico, Virginia and the Police Executive Research Forum’s (PERF) Senior Management Institute for Police held at Boston University.