Richmond is spending $300,000 in ARPA money on 120 ballistic shields for the police department, a move that drew derision from activists at Monday night’s City Council meeting.
The ballistic shield proposal was introduced on March 7 by Mayor Levar Stoney, who requested that the council accept $300,000 in grant funds from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares.
Federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act were earmarked to act as stimulus for state and local governments to deal with the financial burdens brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some municipalities used the aid to stabilize their local economies and pay essential workers, while others put the money toward housing or investments in infrastructure.
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During Monday’s meeting, critics said the money should have gone directly toward community programs.
Miyares was given the money in 2021 by the General Assembly, with the stipulation that it be earmarked for “community-based gun violence prevention programming.”
Miyares’ office then designated the money to be used for “equipment, new program implementation, training, or existing program enhancement.”
RPD specifically requested the shields, each of which costs $2,300, stating that the gear would help make up for a department with “fewer human resources,” and that there were 150 vacancies on the force.
The shields can be attached to police cruisers and are intended protect officers from gunshots. The grant will also go to purchase $24,000 worth of window tinting.
"Cameras are all over the city. Some are owned by the police department and some are owned by other city agencies," said interim police Chief Rick Edwards.
The grant said RPD has been “experiencing an uptick in physical assaults,” but did not provide data in their grant to support the statement. RPD’s request for the shields also referenced national FBI numbers about rising police fatalities in 2021.
Tracy Walker, a spokesperson for the department, said RPD vehicles were struck by gunfire in two separate incidents, “highlighting the need to retrofit our patrol vehicles with internal ballistic door panels.”
“We believe utilizing grant funding from the Virginia Office of the Attorney General will help mitigate some of the risks our officers face and support RPD’s core value of improving employee health and wellness,” said Interim Police Chief Rick Edwards.
The item was approved by Stoney and Lincoln Saunders, the city’s chief administrative officer. Stoney’s spokesperson, Gianni Snidle, did not respond to a request for comment.
On Monday night, the line item was approved as part of a unanimous vote on the council’s “consent agenda” – which is when council members vote on a number of expenditures and motions in one overall package after a public comment period.
The ballistic shields drew criticism from four Richmond residents. One was Omari Al-Qaddafi, a community organizer who questioned why the council had not attached a memorandum of understanding regarding the shield purchase.
“Who from the administration is going to sit here and tell us how this is preventing gun violence in our community?” Al-Qaddafi asked.
Community organizer Art Burton told the council he was furious that the violence reduction grant was not coming to directly to the community.
“We wrote that grant; we helped get that grant funded,” Burton said. “And to this day, we haven’t seen one dollar that was promised to the community.”
“We are dying. We are suffering, and we can get nothing,” he said. “This is the worst government in the history of this city.”
Allan Chipman, a former candidate for the City Council in Richmond’s 3rd District, spoke at the meeting to connect the investment with the recent killing of Irvo Otieno. Seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers are charged with murder after Otieno was pinned to the ground while shackled and handcuffed.
"Today, Richmond is free of Confederate monuments and our past is no longer leading our present," the mayor said.
“If police can’t feel safe when people are shackled, then I don’t think there’s any amount of shielding that can change their concept of protection if our existence continues to be a threat to him,” said Chipman, who was a friend of Otieno’s and spoke at his funeral.
Chipman suggested that the council should reassess its priorities and invest the money in housing or homelessness reduction rather than in the expensive police gear.
Later, council member Reva Trammell said she stood by the shields. She said Edwards defended their purchase at an 8th District meeting on Thursday night.
“When are we gonna get real? When are we going to start realizing that if we don’t have enough officers, who is going to protect us?” Trammell asked. “My people wanted it. I was for it.”
No council members responded to residents’ comments at the time of the meeting.