Brooksville welcomes first police chief in 8 years

BROOKSVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – After 8 years without a police chief, the town of Brooksville has filled the post.

Virginia Rich has had high-profile positions in a few area departments.

Now, she’ll be leading one of her own.

I went to Brooksville today to talk with Chief Virginia Rich and she says that moving to a small town will be a change and a challenge that she can’t wait to tackle.

Brooksville’s Police Department has new leadership.

Veteran officer, Virginia Rich was sworn in this morning as the new Chief of Police.

Rich is well-known in the area of law enforcement.

Over the last 25 years, she has served in a number of roles in the Starkville, Mississippi State, and West Point Police Departments.

Now she’s looking forward to new opportunities in a new environment.

“I love a challenge and I see it as an opportunity and a challenge and I know it’s going to be challenging. I am up for that challenge and I want to be able to help enhance the relationships already in this community for me it’s all about the community. It’s all about these people it’s all about safety,” said Rich.

Topping the list is finding the resources to help her department make the small town a safer place.

“I do know there’s a lot of funding out there that is available for equipment and everything else that comes to law enforcement and anything else in emergency management. It’s out there and you gotta get out there and get it. You gotta want it and I will get out there and try to get the funding to get what we need. so that we can do our jobs much better,” said Rich.

Rich says that she plans on hitting the ground running and hopes that she can bring the town together and keep the community out of any trouble.

“We want to be able to reach our youth and that is so extremely important. Will we have to be creative absolutely we want to be able to set some of those standards, not just for the town of Brooksville but the State of Mississippi. I mean, this small town can be a model for the rest of the state in terms of being creative,” said Rich.

Vice Mayor Annie Anthony-Brooks welcomes the new leadership in the department, which has gone a long time without a chief, and she thinks Rich will be an asset to the community.

“It’s been 8 years since the town of Brooksville has had a chief. we just had a sergeant. We’re just excited about electing a new chief. so we just cant wait to get started,” said Anthony-Brooks.

And Anthony-Brooks hopes that this will make the town feel like a safer place.

“It means a lot. We’ve been dealing with a lot of crime and people have been complaining about how we need extra help we are hoping that bringing her on with the experience that she got is going to mean a lot to the town of Brooksville and she can bring a whole lot of help to this town,” said Anthony-Brooks.

Rich has a couple of cases already on her desk. Brooksville PD is still looking for suspects in a pair of shootings from December of last year.