The bass from the DJ speakers outside hadn’t quieted yet, but the second annual Memorial Day cookout in Tonsler Park had come to a close. Several dozen people made their way past the turntables and into the nearby community center. Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas was ready to talk.
Almost exactly a year ago, Thomas was sworn in to lead the police department, but you wouldn’t know it based on the news media. For the last 12 months he’s been behind the scenes, working. He’s been hiring, firing, restructuring, retraining, creating new paradigms, fighting against old ones and attempting to gain the respect of his 125 officers. Now he needed the community.
“You’re going to see a new organization,” Thomas told the crowd of old and young residents from the area. “You’re going to see a new police department in this community. You’re going to see a different way of policing. …I’m very confident about that. And that’s not a negative comment towards what they were doing in the past. The organizational structure was not conducive to leadership.”
For all of his significant changes since taking over, Thomas is quick not to throw his predecessor, Tim Longo, under the bus. “It was really, truly organizational structure, and it just took a fresh set of eyes,” said Thomas. “You could have come in, and in three months figured it out. But when you’re in it every day”—fighting for resources, fighting to hire and keep quality officers, managing community relations, dealing with high-profile cases—“you never catch up. You become part of that problem.”