RICHMOND, Va. — In the latest episode of “Untold – A WTVR Podcast,” host Catie Beck sits down with Tom Barbour, a Richmond attorney running to be the city’s commonwealth’s attorney.
It is the second time Barbour has challenged Colette McEachin in the democratic primary; he lost to her in 2021 in a race that ultimately was not very competitive. But Barbour says he’s confident things will go differently this time.
“From what I have seen, I think people are tired,” Barbour said. “I think Richmonders are feeling that enough is enough in terms of how this is going. There's just story after story of progress not being made and cases not being pursued. And people are paying attention, you know, and they're not entirely happy with it. I think in 2021, part of what was going on was folks were understandably wanting to give the current administration an opportunity to do that work, but the results have not been good. And I very I think that that perception is out there, and it's something that we've been hearing a lot about on the campaign trail.”
When it comes to crime and punishment in Richmond, Beck asked Barbour what he thinks needs to change.
“I think what we're seeing is stagnation in terms of progress on reducing crime, especially violent crime,” said Barbour. “There was coverage, I believe from your station earlier, a few weeks ago, where we're seeing gun violence especially on a significant uptick, upwards of 40% in shootings and something like 30% in murders just this first quarter. So much so that our mayor had to announce that he's establishing an office of gun violence prevention specifically to focus on that, and we're not seeing any improvement in the actual arrest and prosecution for these crimes. The homicide clearance rate in Richmond hovers around 50%....It's not just that half of the crimes are getting solved, the commonwealth’s attorney's office is only securing convictions in about 60 to 70% of those cleared arrests, so you end up with a total situation in which the majority of people who are committing murders in the city are getting away with it.”
Barbour also spoke about his background, including his decision to join the military after the attacks of 9/11, and what he learned overseas that he believes has prepared him to be the city’s top prosecutor.
“I had been a captain in the United States Marine Corps, and I had done policing in Iraq and Afghanistan. I had run a small nonprofit connecting people in the system to the services they needed to move out of it,” said Barbour. “So I'd done social work, and I had been in the CA’s office under then Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Herring as a senior policy advisor on reform issues and root cause prosecution that he was working on, and so I had experience, both in that office and in my private life, answering big questions around, how do we improve the criminal justice system.”
A link to this latest episode of “Untold – A WTVR Podcast” can be found at the top of this page. You can also find us on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
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