Plans to change how Henrico County responds to nonemergency situations resulted in confusion and apologies in late March.
The county’s Police Division will no longer send patrol officers to address panhandlers, general noise complaints or the discipline of children. Callers will be referred to another part of the division in these and other cases “where there is no legal authority for police to be present or a violation of law,” explains a document outlining the changes. For example, claims of marijuana use will be assigned to Crime Stoppers, and the division’s Community Policing members will handle abandoned vehicles and recovered bicycles.
The changes would free up the county’s more than 700 officers to respond “in a more efficient and timely manner,” Chief Eric D. English said in a YouTube video posted in March. He estimated that the move would result in “nearly 5,000” fewer calls for service out of about 139,000 calls annually. According to the proposed county budget for fiscal year 2025, the changes will provide officers with more time to focus on serious offenses including homicides, assaults and robberies.
The division’s post on Facebook regarding the changes was met largely with anger and frustration. The next day, the division posted a new video to “apologize for the confusion and misunderstanding with these changes.” In it, English reiterates that “each call will be assessed on a call-by-call basis and emergency services will still be provided as needed.” The clarification didn’t convince some of the same commenters.
The division points residents to its Telephone Reporting Unit at 804-501-4810 for a range of nonemergency calls for service, and the division says it is planning to create an online reporting tool.
“Since the publication of this community guide,” reads a division statement emailed in April, “we’ve heard from community members saying they now better understand these changes and support them. Of course, with any sort of change, there are still some community members who feel we should be using patrol units to respond to some of these calls for service. At this time, it’s still too early to quantifiably tell if these changes are making a significant difference for our patrol units.”
The proposed county budget would increase annual funding for the division by 7.5% to $107 million. The Department of Emergency Communications was spun off from the police division in the 2024 budget and handled 528,189 incoming and outgoing calls in that fiscal year. In 2025, $10.5 million is allotted to it, a 17.2% increase.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Chesterfield County, its police department says no changes are being made. “If you request our assistance, we are going to send help to you in the same manner we always have,” now-retired Chief Jeffrey S. Katz wrote in a post on Facebook. “So there is no confusion, we are open for business!”
