New police chief talks about first month on job - NBC12.com - Richmond, VA News

This week marks one month since Ray Tarasovic took over Richmond's police department. NBC12 is asking the new chief the questions that impact your safety.

Chief Tarasovic says whether we're talking on day one of his tenure or on his final day leading RPD, of all policing categories his top two crime-fighting priorities are protecting your property and protecting you from violence.

If you examine the statistics, it looks like so far Chief Ray Tarasovic is accomplishing those goals.

To give you a better picture, we're comparing the numbers for his first month at the helm of the department to the same time period last year:

Overall crime is down 23 percent. Property crime is down 26 percent and violent crime is down 3 percent.

"Transitions are sometimes bumpy," Tarasovic said. "In this case it's been smooth because I had the opportunity to spend three years here."

But that doesn't mean the city has been crime or issue free.  We asked the new chief about the recent violence involving teens. In just one weekend, three were left riddled with bullets.

"Yes I'm concerned," he told us. "I'm bothered."

Tarasovic says officers are working hard to engage what he calls a "unique subculture" that puts out the information about teen parties.

"I'm surely not a believer in canceling all teen events in an effort to provide public safety," he explained. "I just think that we need to be aware, that those kinds of events need the appropriate security."

While it sounds ironic, police departments live and die by their homicide rates. So far this year, there have been three killings, compared to five in the same time last year.

Tarasovic also wants to concentrate on aggravated assaults. He says those types of attacks sometimes come dangerously close to becoming murders.

"You focus the kind of resources that are movable for you that you can utilize throughout the city that you can disperse," he added. you move those to the places where violence occurs."

The new chief is constantly looking at how his resources are staffed, including patrol officers on the streets to the many special units within RPD.  And if something is not yielding the results he wants, he says they have to adapt.

"I am a believer in change," Tarasovic maintained. "I'm not a believer in change for change's sake but I am an absolute believer in continual self- and re-evaluation. With re-evaluation and self-evaluation on a regular basis has to come change.

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