Divisions
Administrative Division
Led by Captain Kendrah Cline, the Administrative Division is responsible for all police administrative services and manages the more than 1,000 incident based reports generated annually by the Operations Division. This division ensures compliance with national accreditation, Virginia Crime Commission and other legal standards, and oversees the training of all sworn officers, dispatchers, security officers, wage, and civilian employees. Additionally, the administrative team analyzes crime statistics and furnishes the Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report. This division includes:
The Community Services Unit is a combination of crime prevention, community engagement, outreach and education. The unit is devoted to enhancing the relationship between the police department and the community it serves, including Virginia Tech and the New River Valley.
This team organizes departmental presentations, fundraisers, the annual Community Day event, the Student and Employee Police Academy, and other community outreach programs.
Residence Life Resource Officers have a strong collaboration with Virginia Tech's Housing and Residence Life. RLROs attend staff meetings, lead educational programs, conduct walk-throughs in residence halls with resident advisors, assist in emergencies, and serve as mentors to students who have gone through the conduct process. The Residence Life Resource Officer Program received the 2013 Student Affairs Partnership Award.
RLROs also help with departmental community engagement opportunties such as Gobbler Nights, Orientation, the department's annual Hot Dog Luncheon, and the Student's Police Academy.
For more information about the RLROs and their programs, please visit the RLRO Nation website and read this VTx story.
Safe Ride is a free nighttime safety escort service that operates from dusk until dawn and provides transportation or a walking escort, upon request, to persons who must cross campus during the nighttime alone. If Safe Ride is requested outside the normal operational hours of the van, the Security Center will offer either a ride with a police officer or a walking escort. Downloading the TransLoc app is the fastest way to request rides and ensure the quickest response times.
The department has three K-9/officer teams. In addition to performing patrol duties on campus, the dogs sweep Lane Stadium and other locations before home football games and other special events. The teams also give demonstrations at several Virginia Tech events every year. For more information about our current and past K-9 teams, please visit the K-9 Unit site.
Operations Division
Led by Captain Sean Smith, the Operations Division is responsible for all police services, 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week. The division is comprised of patrol officers, detectives, security officers and security center representatives.
Assigned to one of four shifts, patrol officers handle emergency situations, criminal complaints, traffic enforcement, and other service needs in the community.
Patrol shifts utilize a variety of policing options that provide ultimate maneuverability and increased presence, which allows officers to effectively interact with students and employees. In addition to marked patrol vehicles, officers patrol on foot and on bicycles. These options, in addition to other available resources, allow officers to effectively serve and protect the campus community.
The Investigations Unit consists of a detective lieutenant, a detective sergeant, and three plain clothes detectives. This unit is responsible for investigating all reported crimes and suspicious circumstances reported to the department. The unit also conducts preliminary employment background investigations, threat assessment inquiries, and forensic evidence recovery and crime scene processing/management. Detectives work diligently with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies gathering and sharing information to solve reported crimes. Investigations maintains the Ban from Campus listing and oversees campus crime alerts and timely warnings sent to the Virginia Tech community.
The Investigations Unit partners closely with community administrators and contributes to several teams that assist in supporting community safety and success. Investigations has representation on the university's Threat Assessment Team, Bias Incident Response Team, Care Team, Title IX Advisory Team, Campus Workplace Violence Prevention Committee, and others. They also work very closely with the other departmental units to promote the department's outreach efforts, educational programs such as Team One Love events and Student and Employee Police Academy, and public safety initiatives.
Our team of security guards are the eyes and ears of the police department and serve the community in a variety of ways. Along with patrolling and serving as highly visible crime deterrents, our guards lock and unlock buildings, help jumpstart campus community members’ vehicles, help with traffic control at big campus events and provide assistance to faculty and staff locked out of their offices.
To further ensure safety, our security guards maintain biweekly inspections of the campus blue light emergency phones, and they assist the department with providing escorts for Safe Ride, a nighttime safety escort service available for free to all members of the campus community.
Integral to the essential operations of campus safety, Security Center Representatives provide assistance to the division and more than 20,000 calls for service annually. A team of six full-time employees works 24/7, monitoring more than 600 security cameras across campus and departmental radio channels and assisting with coordination of a range of key security and safety services. The representatives dispatch SafeRide requests and review crime tips texted to Virginia Tech Police.
The team also coordinates student firearm and ammunition drop-off and storage, dispatches officers to assist with fingerprint services, triages facilities and residential maintenance issues during after hours and weekends, and helps augment on-campus event security efforts by monitoring extra radio channels. Additionally, the Security Center answers the university’s 24-hour assistance phone line that can be accessed internationally.