Virginia law enforcement leaders fear the election of Jay Jones—who once fantasized about putting “two bullets” in the head of a GOP lawmaker and mused whether more cop-killings would stop officers from shooting people—could harm public safety and may lead to a police exodus across the state.
“Some people are going to leave the profession,” Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, a pro-law-enforcement advocacy group, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Some of them are going to be leaving the state. Some of them are going to be retiring early.”
“Police are going to be deflated by what happened, but they’ll soldier on,” Kennedy added. “You’ll see depleted ranks and less qualified applicants over time, but there’s always hope in the future that new leadership will change that in the next elections.”
Police have reason for concern. Jones’s commitment to law and order has been repeatedly called into question, between his surfaced texts and an investigation into his logging 500 hours of community service with his own PAC to resolve a speeding conviction. And during his failed 2021 attorney general bid, he alleged that Virginia has “a police system with a well-known history of racism,” promised to create “implicit bias training curriculums,” and called for an end to cash bail and qualified immunity.
Jones has scaled back that rhetoric, but Virginia sheriffs still feel the attorney general-elect needs to prove himself before they can trust him. Loudoun County sheriff Mike Chapman, whose department patrols the richest county in America, said ending qualified immunity “would be devastating to the law enforcement profession,” while eliminating cash bail “would be real problematic for the safety of our citizens.”
“It’s going to be a little bit of a haul for [Jones] to prove himself with the law enforcement community after some of the things he said, the ‘two bullets to the head,’ but also his stance on law enforcement, which is concerning to me,” Chapman told the Free Beacon. “If you’re doing anything to jeopardize or undermine that, that’s going to argue with the job that we do and the community confidence that we develop when it comes to holding people accountable.”
As Virginia’s top cop, Jones will have sweeping authority to conduct and assist in criminal investigations and prosecutions—including cases involving police misconduct—and can set enforcement priorities. That influence could have a major impact on police, Wise County sheriff E. Grant Kilgore said.
“Depending on how he conducts business and how he does policies and law, how he approaches big cases, I think it could have a negative effect,” he told the Free Beacon. “I have some concerns based on his history—everybody does, except most of the voters in blue counties in Virginia. Not sure how that happened, but it did.”
“I don’t think anybody at any level of society should say or do the things that he’s done,” Kilgore added.
But not every sheriff is sounding the alarm.
“Regardless of who holds elected office, our duty is to uphold the law and continue working cooperatively with all of our partners in support of public safety,” Fauquier County sheriff Jeremy A. Falls told the Free Beacon.
Chesterfield County sheriff Karl Leonard said, “I want him to be the best Attorney General there ever—anything but that is to wish ill will on Virginia, Virginians, and Virginia law enforcement members.”
“Yes, his comments were absolutely inappropriate, but actions speak louder than words and now he has the opportunity to demonstrate through his actions what kind of person he is,” Leonard added.
Still, police groups sounded the alarm after Jones’s texts first surfaced. On October 5, National Review published messages Jones sent in 2022 to Virginia state delegate Carrie Coyner (R.) in which he said that his Republican colleague Todd Gilbert “gets two bullets to the head” and listed the GOP lawmaker alongside Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. The next day, the website “Virginia Scope” reported that Jones also told Coyner that if a few police died, “they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”
Soon after, the Virginia Police Benevolent Association, which endorsed then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, said that if Jones were to win, he should decline to take office.
“Leaders cannot serve effectively when their own conduct has undermined their credibility,” the group said in a statement.
The Virginia Law Enforcement Sheriffs group called on Jones to withdraw and wrote, “We will not follow an individual who has made such vile statements against citizens and the men and women in uniform who work hard every day risking their lives to combat the violence you advocate against.”
Several groups also lodged complaints calling on the Virginia State Bar to strip Jones of his law license. That could spell trouble for Jones, as he must be admitted to the bar to serve as attorney general.
Jones did not respond to a request for comment.
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