Henrico names Harrisonburg's English its new police chief

Though Henrico County’s new police chief is arriving from a different locality, he’s no stranger to this area.

In fact, you might say Eric D. English is coming home.

English, who has spent the past two years as chief of police in Harrisonburg, Va., today will be introduced as Henrico’s chief of police. When he takes control of the department Sept. 14, replacing Humberto Cardounel (who is retiring after nearly 32 years with the division) he also will become its first Black chief.

Prior to his appointment in Harrisonburg in September 2018, English, 53, had spent his entire law enforcement career in the Richmond region – the six months with Goochland County and the rest with the city of Richmond, where he rose from a patrol officer to deputy chief. He has lived in Henrico for 30 years, maintaining his home here after accepting the Harrisonburg job.

He will join the department at a time when calls for additional transparency and more oversight for the department are growing louder in Henrico, just as they are for departments nationwide, in light of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and subsequent protests throughout the country for police reform. (The county’s Board of Supervisors later today will hold its first in-depth discussion about the potential creation of a civilian review board for the division – a board that could examine potential misconduct claims against officers, potentially with subpoena power.)

If his time in Harrisonburg is any indication, those are calls that English will welcome in Henrico.

After arriving in Harrisonburg, he implemented new technology that allowed the department to produce regular reports about all of its arrests and use-of-force incidents – documenting the total number of each by year, as well as the race and ethnicity of the citizens involved – both of which appear prominently at the top of the department’s internet homepage.

By contrast, Henrico does not regularly compile or release detailed use-of-force data, though it did compile such data – including the race and ethnicity of the people against whom force was used during the first half of this year – at the Citizen’s request in July. The agency did not charge for that data, but when the Citizen requested the same data for 2018 and 2019, a police official told the publication that there would be a “significant cost” for compiling it, suggesting that the charges for the 2020 information had required about $900 worth of staff time.

Henrico Police officials do post online detailed arrest reports, along with mugshots, viewable from the most recent 30 days. They also post calls for service, which are searchable.

‘You have to be transparent’

In Harrisonburg, English also:

• conducted a review of department policies to bring them up to his desired standards;

• created an internal force investigation team to review every officer use-of-force incident;

• created a use-of-force review board (which includes two citizens) to review officer use-of-force cases;

• created a peer support team for officers to discuss incidents among themselves and receive feedback and advice;

• created an accident review board to analyze every officer-involved traffic incident;

• implemented community walks, whereby officers actively walk their patrol areas and develop relationships with residents and businesses;

• placed merchant ‘checkbooks’ inside businesses, requiring officers to sign them when they visited as proof that they were following the new guidelines;

• required all officers to undergo crisis intervention training to better prepare them for mental health calls;

• implemented autism training for officers to better prepare them for possible interactions with autistic citizens;

• hosted events to educate citizens about each of the duties of various sections within the department, such as the SWAT team and others;

• began planning for outreach efforts into minority communities in an attempt to attract new recruits to the force.

“We looked at every policy that the police department had,” English told the Harrisonburg City Council during a virtual meeting in June, recounting his arrival to the city. “We got rid of some policies, we revamped some and we created new ones.”

Requiring his officers to walk their communities was a proactive way to develop connections and show the community that they cared and wanted to build relationships, English said.

“We need to get to know people not just in their time of crisis, but before those things occur,” he told the city council in June.

By providing crime and use-of-force data, the department showed members of the community that it was serious about being accountable, English said.

“In order to build trust and legitimacy, you also have to be transparent,” he said.

English took things a step farther by involving citizens and community groups in the creation of policies, too.

His department involved the Virginia Organizing organization when it was crafting its immigration guideline policy, English said, and made some changes based on recommendations from the group. It also made changes to its use-of-force policy based on input from citizens after Floyd’s death – including one making it mandatory for any officer to intervene when witnessing excessive use of force by another.

“I’m not opposed to getting those calls, getting those recommendations from our citizens,” he told the Harrisonburg City Council in June.

His short tenure in Harrisonburg seemed to meet with approval from his officers, government officials and citizens alike.

“From all accounts I hear and my personal interactions, everybody enjoys having you here, and the ladies and gentlemen of HPD have always given me good feedback about their relationship with you and how they see the department going,” Harrisonburg Councilman Christopher Jones told English in June. “[Citizens] are happy that they’ve got someone that will listen and be transparent and someone they can interact with and have a conversation with – even if they’re not happy with something or they have different views on how policing should be done.”

English supports more funding for mental health officials

Nationally, many citizens who want police reform have called for the reduction in funding for police departments and for more funding for mental health officials, who might handle some calls involving mental health patients instead of, or alongside, police.

English has indicated strong support for the latter concept.

“I’ve always said we should not be in the mental health field,” he told the Harrisonburg City Council, “because anytime we deal with mental health, we’re bringing a gun, we’re bringing a taser, we’re bringing O.C. [tear gas], and there’s always the potential for something to go wrong. So we have to be a lot smarter about what we’re doing.”

In addition, he said, sometimes officers have to wait for hours with a mental health patient in a hospital until a bed becomes available or spent hours transporting a patient to a mental hospital farther away. He said that in some cases, police still would need to respond along with mental health officials but that in others, the presence of police wouldn’t be necessary.

“I don’t think we can ever get totally out of the business of mental health,” he said, “but I do think there needs to be more funding that is put in the mental health field.”

From basketball to law enforcement

English got his start in law enforcement unexpectedly. He arrived in Richmond in 1985 from his hometown of Mebane, N.C. as a freshman basketball player for the University of Richmond, then proceeded to play a role in one of the most successful four-year runs the Spiders’ basketball program had enjoyed to that point, during which it won a total of 85 games and appeared in two NCAA tournaments.

English and his teammates received annual visits from FBI agents who warned them about the risks of point-shaving (accepting money to fix games or manipulate the final margins of wins or losses for gamblers). He asked one agent about his job and decided that he wanted to pursue a career with the FBI, too. He graduated from UR with a criminal justice degree.

But after six months working for the Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center in Goochland upon graduation from college in 1989, he took at job as a patrol officer in Richmond and soon determined that policing was more his style.

He earned promotions to sergeant (1996), lieutenant (2003), captain (2005) and major (2008) and then became deputy chief in 2011, a role he held until leaving for Harrisonburg two years ago.

English serves as the president of the Central Virginia Chapter of NOBLE, the national Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

In Henrico, he will lead a department with a staff of more than 860 officials.

In a Facebook post three days after Floyd’s murder, English said the incident struck him hard as a police chief, a Black man and a citizen.

“[T]here are times when we in this game don't take that uniform off and look at it from the perspective of a citizen not involved in law enforcement,” he wrote. “You can't expect incidents like this to continue and people not become enraged, especially when there is not accountability and they see it as continuous cycle and their voices are not being heard. I have never been of the mindset that I am an officer 24/7. I have always been a citizen 24/7 and my profession is only a small part of who I am. There is more to life than the job.

“For those citizens that are struggling with law enforcement, we are going to continue to strive to make positive change in our organizations, personnel and our communities. Believe me, if I didn't wear this uniform I would feel just like many of you do, because even wearing the uniform I feel just like many of you do.”