Henrico supervisors to hold public meeting about civilian review board Aug. 24

Henrico’s Board of Supervisors will hold a public meeting Aug. 24 at 5 p.m. to discuss in detail the possibility of establishing a civilian review board for the county’s Division of Police. A location for the meeting hasn’t been finalized, according to Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson, who made the announcement during his Sandston community meeting at Sandston Elementary School Aug. 3.

Nelson proposed the idea of a CRB in June and the four other supervisors subsequently told the Citizen that they either supported the idea or were open to discussing it. The board discussed it briefly during its July 28 work session but supervisors agreed that they would need a separate work session to more completely examine it and ask questions of various county officials and receive comments from citizens.

The county solicited input from citizens about the potential creation of a board during the month of July; as of several days before its meeting last week, it had received 300 comments about the idea; in the final week or so of the month, it received more than double that number and now has a total of about 700, Nelson told attendees of his meeting Monday night.

At last week’s meeting, supervisors learned that nearly half of the 300 comments the county had received as of late July indicated support for a CRB, while about one-quarter expressed opposition, and about 28% indicated no preference. It’s unknown how those numbers have since changed.