FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) - The police chief in Virginia’s most populous jurisdiction is retiring next year.
Fairfax County Police said Thursday that Chief Edwin Roessler’s retirement will take effect in February.
He has been chief since 2013 and was hired as a police recruit in 1989.
In recent years, he worked to increase transparency within the department and implemented use of body-worn cameras.
In 2018 he earned the ire of federal law-enforcement partners when he released dashcam video of a chase in which two U.S. Park Police officers fatally shot an unarmed motorist, Bijan Ghasair, after a stop-and-go chase in which Fairfax officers played a supporting role.
The video fed public outrage and accusations of excessive force. Earlier this year the two officers were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
He also earned the ire of officers in his own department. In July the county’s police union called for his resignation after Roessler criticized an officer’s use of a stun gun on a Black man and said at a press conference that the nation “is righteously angry at the law enforcement profession.”
County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay praised Roessler for the reforms he implemented and said his efforts “have made us the safest jurisdiction of our size in the nation.”
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