Henrico Police provide details about cost of mutual aid to Richmond

The Henrico Division of Police spent more than $69,000 to send 200 officers to assist the Richmond Police Department during five days of protests in the city between May 29 and June 14, a police spokesman told the Citizen Wednesday.

The information came days after the division responded to the Citizen's request for it by saying that it had no such data to provide and a day after the Citizen published an article reflecting that claim.

But Wednesday, Henrico Police Lt. A.M. Robertson told the Citizen that Henrico had provided support on five occasions – May 29, 30 and 31 and June 1 and 14, sending 61 officers on the first date, 58 on the second, 28 on the third, 26 on the fourth and 27 on the fifth. The total cost to the county for its officers' time is estimated to be $69,330.57, Robertson said.

Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas told the Citizen Wednesday that the data it requested initially is tracked and was available but that police officials were waiting for payroll data to come in before providing it. The data could have been estimated right away, however, he said. He attributed the initial response by police to a communications chain mix-up.

"I don't want to make it seem like Henrico is in any way holding anything back," Vithoulkas said.

Vithoulkas must approve any mutual aid requests made of Henrico agencies, he said.

Henrico officers have not assisted Richmond since the June 14 protests, which spilled into the overnight hours June 15 – and county officials have made it clear to their Richmond counterparts that Henrico is not planning to send its officers to assist with future protests, Vithoulkas said.

"We have a lot of needs within the county, but I also feel like there's just not a uniform approach that's being taken right now to manage the situation in Richmond, so I am going to err on the side of officer safety and not do anything other than that," he said, citing the recent change in RPD leadership and brief involvement of the National Guard as examples of circumstances that gave him pause.

Metro Richmond localities have mutual aid agreements in place that generally outline the conditions through which they will provide public safety or other assistance to each other as needed. The Citizen has requested copies of those agreements from the Henrico Police and is awaiting their receipt.

Henrico Fire officials responded Wednesday to a similar request with copies of the 15 mutual aid agreements they have, as well as data showing that they have provided more than 300 hours of mutual aid service this year to five other Central Virginia localities – the majority to the city of Richmond.

In total, 165 Henrico Fire officials have provided 303 hours of service to Richmond, Charles City, Goochland, Hanover and New Kent counties. Assistance to Richmond accounted for 90 percent of those hours, according to Henrico Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Marshal Henry Rosenbaum. (Each employee trip is counted separately, so the same employee could be counted multiple times if he or she responds to multiple mutual aid calls, he said.)

Rosenbaum told the Citizen that the division does not have records of the total costs associated with the mutual aid.

So far this year, Henrico has sent 106 firefighters to assist with 22 calls for service in the city of Richmond, for a total of 274 hours of service.

The county also has responded to 4 mutual aid fire calls from Goochland and 2 each from Charles City, Hanover and New Kent counties, sending a total of 59 employees to those 10 calls, where they spent a total of 29 hours.

Although mutual aid assistance from one Central Virginia locality to another may include a reimbursement from the receiving locality on occasion, that's the exception rather than the norm, Vithoulkas said. More common is state or federal reimbursement money for larger scale needs farther away, he said.

Typically, when one locality makes a request for aid from another, "it literally is, if you feel comfortable sending what's requested [then you do]," he said. "Sometimes we don't send everything that's requested."

Among many other mutual aid calls, Henrico has provided officers to assist with logistics in Charlottesville, mental health officials to assist in Virginia Beach following a mass shooting there and firefighters to Hanover County so that its firefighters could attend the funeral of one of their own several years ago, Vithoulkas said.

Public safety officials sent to provide mutual aid to other localities typically are either off duty or working overtime, Vithoulkas said.

"We're not taking anyone off the street [in Henrico]," he said.

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