Richmond Police Chief on staffing, standards, and reducing crime: 'It's like juggling chainsaws'

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Chief of Police is often the face of public safety in the community where they work. And while the chief often gets credit when crime numbers are down, they also face the brunt of the blame when crime spikes.

Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards was named acting chief in 2022 following the previous chief's resignation. After eight months as active chief, Edwards was hired as the new chief.

As part of WTVR CBS 6's commitment to share as many voices as possible from our community, Crime Insider Jon Burkett spoke with Chief Edwards about the challenges crime and crime fighting pose in Richmond and on the Richmond Police Department.

"I was willing to take the job, but I wanted to do more, if I was going to be acting, and there were several things that I wanted to change right away. And I didn't want to just sign off on requisition forms, or just be that placeholder," Chief Edwards said about the transition from longtime Richmond Police officer to acting chief, to chief.

Following months of COVID 19 related lockdowns and widespread civil unrest after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Richmond Police Department (RPD), and departments around the nation, found it difficult to retain officers and recruit new ones.

"We were hemorrhaging officers at the time. So that was my first order of business trying to reestablish trust with the officers and stop that hemorrhage," Edwards said.

One of his first actions as chief was to reach out to veteran officers who left RPD for better pay elsewhere.

"We made a very overt appeal to them," Edwards said. "So we have a list of people that left, every one of those folks have gotten calls. And I've made some of those calls directly. People that I've served with and I know went to one of the surrounding counties. And we've I think we've got 20 that came back this year."

Depsite those recruiting efforts, RPD still has more than 140 open positions (out of 755 total). That number will shrink some when 28 new recruits, about to enroll in the next academy, graduate the six-month program.

"That's by far the biggest [academy class] we've had since, I think, 2019 was our last one that big," Edwards said. "Our numbers are up 25% over this time last year of applicants. And you know, one of the things I said to my command staff in charge of the personnel division is yes, we need officers, but we still want to hold the standard."

It's a standard that Edwards must set the example to maintain.

"I had served up here as the acting major for a couple years under my predecessor, and I thought I understood what the chief's job was, but I didn't," he said. "It's like juggling chainsaws and the best I can ever hope for is I can turn the motor on one of the chainsaws off, to slow things down."

In addition to standards and staffing, violent crime is an area that has the focus of Edwards and his command staff.

Mid-year crime stats, which were not available when Burkett interviewed Edwards for this story, showed violent crime was slightly down overall from when he became chief in 2023.

Watch: New RPD crime stats show uptick in car thefts, decrease in homicides, rape

After a violent April, which included 10 homicides with mostly teenage victims, Edwards made the call to Virginia State Police to begin Operation Safe Summer two months ahead of schedule. The city saw an improvement, but again in mid July, another spike in shootings. Fourteen people were shot across the city over the span of six days.

"We have Virginia State Troopers right now riding around with Richmond detectives and officers. We have members of the FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals, the US Attorney's Office is involved in these meetings, the Commonwealth Attorney's office. So all of us leveraging all of these resources towards one goal, and that's reducing gun violence in our city," Edwards said about the effort.

"I recently learned that there is a member from the Commonwealth Attorney's Office is working with the Eastern District, in case there are cases that you want to push that federal direction," Burkett said to Edwards.

"There should be no surprise. If you're a person and you have your case taken federally, and you've done something in your life, you've been a convicted felon, you are a long standing drug dealer, you're a person whose name has come up and in shootings prior. So it should be no surprise, if you go that route," Edwards said.

Edwards said he believed the Richmond Police Department was headed in a positive direction. He cited improved morale, increasing recruitment and lowering violent crime as his top priorities.

With a mayoral election ahead in November, Edwards knows his future as chief ultimately lies with the person voters elect to lead Richmond.

"I'm going to do my best to stay in a position but ultimately the mayor is going to have to make that decision," he said. "They're going to have to feel comfortable with me in this role. And if they don't, then you know, I think I've set this police department up for success, which is always what my goal has been I love this organization."

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