Charlottesville Police Department reaccredited

The Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission has awarded reaccredited status to the Charlottesville Police Department.

According to a release, the assessment found that the department remains in compliance with 192 required standards.

”I am incredibly proud of our staff who work tirelessly each and every day to ensure we uphold the highest of standards; our community should expect nothing less,” said Police Chief Michael Kochis.

The 192 standards are grouped into the four categories of administration, operations, personnel, and training. Take a deeper look in the program manual.

The Charlottesville Police Department operates underneath a three-year strategic plan that was last updated in December 2023. Here is the mission statement:

“In partnership with the community, we strive to improve the quality of life of those who live, work, and visit our city. We will do this by creating a safe and secure environment through professional,
empathetic, relational, and accountable policing practices. With community policing as our foundation, we strive to maintain trust and legitimacy through respectful, transparent, and impartial public safety
practices.”

There are several goals:

• Goal 1: To reduce gun violence through increased community partnerships within the City of Charlottesville
• Goal 2: To improve the recruitment and retention of highly qualified police officers and professional staff members for the Charlottesville Police Department
• Goal 3: To better the treatment, safety, and well-being of all those who work within the Charlottesville Police Department

There are also a series of annual reports with the most recent being from 2023.

“We began 2023 with a significant increase in part 1 crime specifically in the area of gun violence,” writes Police Chief Michael Kochis in the report’s introduction. “Between the months of January and March, we experienced three homicides and were responding to, on average, one shots fired call a day.
Through these challenges, we remained committed to building meaningful relationships with our community.”

For more information on the annual report, check out this story from May 22, 2024.

Earlier this year, the CPD asked a asked a division of the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a review of its operations. More on that topic in this story from September 27, 2024.

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