Sheriff Chapman will seek fourth term

Mike Chapman announced that he will seek a fourth, four-year term as Sheriff of Loudoun County, overseeing the largest, full-service Sheriff’s Office in Virginia, the position he has held since 2012.

This announcement comes fresh off an International Association of Chiefs of Police study showing the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office provides “excellent” service, and a Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Council of Government report confirming that Loudoun has the lowest crime rate in the Washington, D.C.-Northern Virginia area.

“Loudoun County is one of the safest places in the United States to live and work, and I am determined to keep it that way through continuous improvement, the professionalism of our team, and effective community engagement,” Chapman said.

COG statistics further demonstrate that since Chapman took office in 2012, crime has dropped by an unprecedented 47 percent – the best performance in Northern Virginia, including four times the reduction in Fairfax County and twice as much as in Prince William County. 

In 2022, Sheriff Chapman was voted Loudoun’s Favorite Public Servant by readers of Loudoun Now, and Best Public Servant by readers of the Loudoun Times Mirror. The LCSO itself continues to receive citizen satisfaction ratings of 90 percent or higher in independent surveys conducted by the University of Virginia and others.
“Our Step-Up Strategy to constantly improve Service, Technology, Efficiency and
Professionalism is clearly working,” said Chapman. “My promise has always been to do
everything possible to keep Loudoun safe, and I will continue to do so if our citizens re-elect
me.”

Chapman named four areas he plans to focus on this year and in his next term:

1.     Continue reduction of serious crimes – adding new deputies and expanding programs to prevent crime, and holding violent criminals and drug traffickers accountable;

2.     Expand mental health initiatives – helping those in crisis with more local treatment and transition options, including LCSO’s police-mental health co-responder program as well as advancing the capabilities of the Crisis Intervention Team at Assessment Center (CITAC);

3.     Continue interdiction of dangerous drugs – leveraging Chapman’s global expertise and professional contacts to further enhance cooperative relationships with state, regional and federal partners and keep dangerous drugs out of Loudoun; and

4.    Protect children and schools – working with parents, teachers, and school administrators to further strengthen LCSO’s exemplary School Resource Officer, internet safety, and related programs, and to optimize communication with schools to ensure the safety of our youth.

“Under my leadership, the LCSO has become a leader in the law enforcement community, but there is no such thing as doing enough when it comes to crime prevention and public safety,” said Chapman. “We continue to move in the right direction in service to our community, and we can’t take our foot off the gas now.”

LCSO has led the region in de-escalation efforts with nearly 100 percent of all deputies and dispatchers trained in Crisis Intervention and Advanced Crisis Intervention programs. “We always strive to de-escalate volatile situations to avoid the use of force,” said Chapman, “and we do this successfully every day in Loudoun thanks to the professionalism of our deputies, effective training, and collaboration with community partners.”

Chapman built Loudoun’s School Resource Officer program that now provides a full-time presence in every public high school and middle school in the County – and well as a shared presence in elementary schools.

“SROs keep our school children and teachers safe, and are prepared for any emergency,” said Chapman. “SROs are some of LCSO’s best trained deputies and foster positive communications and trust among all the stakeholders in our schools,” he added. Under Chapman’s leadership, Loudoun’s SRO program received the National Association of School Resource Officers Model Agency of the Year Award in 2018, naming it as one of the best SRO programs in the United States. Chapman also introduced the “Safe-2-Talk” app enabling students to anonymously contact law enforcement dispatch directly to bypass administrative bureaucracy in event of a personal concern or emergency.

Chapman currently serves as Vice President for Homeland Security for the Major County Sheriffs of America; as Homeland Committee Chair and Board Member for the National Sheriffs’ Association; as Chairman of the Baltimore-Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program; as a Board Member of Virginia’s Department of Criminal Justice Services; and as the Virginia Sheriff’s Association Region IV Director and member of its Legislative Committee.