The Charlottesville Police Department is not a systematically racist organization

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I served in the Charlottesville Police Department from 1981 to 2012. During my thirty-one year career, I held the ranks of Patroller, Detective, Sergeant, Lieutenant and Captain.

I want to push back the false narrative I hear represented by the current mayor of Charlottesville and a small group of supporters: that the Charlottesville Police Department is a systematically racist organization. The mayor and others make these claims while offering no evidence or rational argument to back them up. I submit that these accusations are slanderous, absurd and patently false.

I have spent most of my thirty-one year career under the direction of two chiefs of police: John DeKoven Bowen and Timothy J. Longo, two of the best human beings I have ever known. Both chiefs were recognized by community leaders of all races in Charlottesville as men of honor and integrity who led an exceptional police service. The Charlottesville Police Department was regarded with great esteem locally and statewide as a professional and well-run organization. To suggest that either of these leaders ran a racist department is misinformed at best, and a damaging lie at worst for political and personal gain.

In my entire career, I have never witnessed a single incident of racism from a Charlottesville police officer. On the contrary, I have witnessed countless acts of courage, compassion and selflessness in the service of the people of Charlottesville regardless of race. I worked in a department that did everything possible to protect and serve the city’s minority population. No police department is perfect, but our officers have been held accountable, disciplined where necessary, and terminated where necessary for violating department policies, procedures and standards of conduct.

The Charlottesville Police Department is not now, nor has it ever been, a systematically racist organization, and the men and women who honorably serve in the Charlottesville Police Department are not racist. On a daily basis, they do more good for the citizens of this city than Mayor Nikuyah Walker and all the self-proclaimed anti-police activists ever will.

Make sure Charlottesville learns the truth and get to know your police officers. They are good, decent men and women who work hard in difficult, dangerous and often thankless work. Any of them would risk their own life to save yours, whatever the circumstances, I guarantee. They stand up every day for what’s right.

Who defends them?

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