Policy

News From Chesapeake

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Interesting timing for this announcement:

Chesapeake will hire an independent consultant to review the police department's procedures, policies and staffing levels, City Manager William Harrell announced at a Tuesday morning press conference.
Harrell's decision comes less than two weeks after Chesapeake Detective Jarrod Shivers was shot and killed while serving a search warrant on a home in the Portlock section of the city.

Seems like at least some officials in Chesapeake aren't happy with police procedures.

Related: One of Shivers' colleagues recently told the Virginian-Pilot that if they were to conduct the raid again tomorrow, they'd do it "the exact same way." I suppose he was driven to say that in part by feelings of defiance in the wake of his friend's death. There's also the matter of liability. Admitting police error could both hurt the criminal case against Frederick and could put the department and individual officers at risk should Det. Shivers' family decide to sue.

But damn. You just conducted a raid that ended with a dead cop and a man with no prior record sitting in jail on murder-one charges. You've got a life ended, a life ruined, and two families in mourning. All the raid turned up is what I think we can now safely say was no more than a user's amount of marijuana. The vast marijuana grow operation described in the search warrant is nowhere to be found. And you wouldn't do anything differently?