Prince William's New Police Chief Embraces Reform, Diversity

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA — The Prince William County Police Department is working to build a more diverse agency to reflect the community it serves, Peter Newsham, the county’s new police chief, said Tuesday night during a town hall meeting.

Newsham, who started in his new job on Feb. 1 after a 30-year career in the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., said he plans to work with the community to help identify young people of color who might be interested in a career in law enforcement.

Prince William County is the most diverse county in Northern Virginia, with a 25 percent Latino, 22 percent African American and 9 percent Asian population.

“I know that our young people in our communities are service-minded,” Newsham said during the virtual town hall organized by Prince William County Supervisor Andrea Bailey (D-Potomac). “Our younger generation really wants to be involved in something where they are serving our communities.”

But many in the younger generation, particularly young people of color, are not looking to law enforcement as a career option, the police chief said. “I think there is some peer pressure that is discouraging some of our young people of color of joining this profession,” he said.

Newsham said he hopes community leaders in the county can point young people who are service-minded in the direction of the police department.

For the young people who have concerns about the role of the police departments in society and who believe in the need for police reform, "I would say, Who is better to change it than you. Come in, join this agency, be part of the reform, be part of the change, and Prince William County is going to end up being a much better place."

As the Prince William County Police Department evolves and diversifies its ranks, Newsham said there needs to be a "very thorough vetting of anybody we bring onto this police department to make sure they don't have a hidden bias [or] that they're involved in some kind of extremist group."

In December, a Prince William County sheriff’s deputy was fired after multiple “disturbing comments” were discovered on his social media account. Some posts advocated violence toward local and national government officials, including Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

Many of the supporters of President Donald Trump arrested in connection with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were either current or retired law enforcement officers.

When anybody who wears a police uniform is found to have engaged in racist or extremist types of behavior, "it gets attributed to all of us," Newsham said.

Recalling his time as D.C. police chief during last year's Black Lives Matter protests, Newsham said the Metropolitan Police Department tried its best to facilitate the "First Amendment assemblies," which numbered more than 1,000 in the District of Columbia in 2020.

"Very few of those protests resulted in any type of police action because our philosophy was to facilitate this in a very peaceful way," he said.

Newsham said he hopes to facilitate First Amendment-protected actions in Prince William County and hopes to avoid incidents like the May 30, 2020, demonstration in Manassas that resulted in the police department using tear gas and rubber bullets against people protesting the death of George Floyd.

Newsham served as chief of the Metropolitan Police Department from September 2016 through December 2020. He retired on Jan. 1.

In the 20 years prior to Newsham joining the Prince William County Police Department, he was directly involved in the use of controversial police tactics in D.C. In 2002, Newsham ordered D.C. police to corral, or "kettle," hundreds of protesters in Pershing Park.

The city's Office of the Corporation Counsel decided not to prosecute a single one of the 400 people who were arrested. Numerous lawsuits followed, with D.C. paying $11 million in settlements.

The D.C. police used the same kettling practice on inauguration day in 2017 under Newsham's leadership and continued to kettle protesters during Black Lives Matter demonstrations last summer.