NORFOLK, Va. — A state list shows 15 law enforcement officers employed across the Hampton Roads region lost their certifications dating back to March of 2021.
According to data from the Department of Criminal Justice Services, there were 68 law enforcement officers who lost their certification to serve as an officer of the law in Virginia, as previously reported by the Associated Press.
13News Now obtained a copy of the report, showing more than a dozen of those decertifications came from the Hampton Roads region, spread out among different municipalities and agencies.
In a special session in 2020, the Virginia General Assembly passed SB 5030, a police reform bill sponsored by State Sen. Mamie Locke of Hampton. The new law expanded the criteria for which an officer could be "decertified" to include misconduct, such as being found "untruthful" in their work duties.
Of the 15 cases of an officer being decertified, more than half were for reasons of being "untruthful."
The agencies that include at least one officer losing their certification for untruthful statements, documentation or similar reasons like falsifying documents include: The York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office, Chesapeake Police Department, Portsmouth Police Department, Suffolk Police Department, the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, as well as campus police at Old Dominion University.
In Chesapeake, four officers were decertified in September of 2021 for providing untruthful statements during an internal investigation. A spokesperson for the department said these did not corrupt criminal cases.
In a statement to 13News Now, Chief Kelvin Wright said:
"The trustworthiness of a police officer is of paramount importance to all of us in law enforcement. Those who cannot speak the truth no matter what the circumstances, should not be in law enforcement."
“Some of the changes made don’t point to our officers being more unprofessional. It’s just that we’ve raised the bar higher. We’re decertifying for things that we weren’t before," Dana Schrad said, Executive Director for the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.
Other departments such as Hampton Police Division, Norfolk Sheriff's Office and Norfolk Police Department had decertified cases for other reasons.