CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — The Chesterfield Commonwealth’s Attorney has decided to drop the one case in which a Chesterfield Police Officer, now under investigation for alleged ties to a white supremacist group, was the primary officer.
“I personally ran a search of the suspended officer’s pending felony cases this morning, and my chief deputy instructed our prosecutors to flag all of his cases for immediate supervisory review,” Chesterfield Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Miles said in a statement posted to social media. “Perhaps because of his most recent assignment as a school resource officer, there is only one pending felony prosecution on which he is the primary officer. We’ve decided to drop that case, and the prosecutor handling it is notifying the defendant’s attorney of our decision today. We are also currently reviewing the officer’s closed cases for any signs of impropriety.”
The officer in question was the School Resource Officer at L.C. Bird High School. On Monday he was removed from his position, suspended, and recommended for termination by Chesterfield Police Chief Col Jeffery Katz after claims surfaced that the officer was affiliated with a white supremacist group called Identity Evropa.
Images of the officer tying him to the group were shared on social media.
“We are concerned and committed to determining if there is any truth to these allegations,” Chesterfield Police Chief Col. Jeffrey Katz wrote in a statement Monday. “There is absolutely no place for intolerance or prejudicial behavior in public service, and we will not tolerate affiliations which even remotely lend themselves to predispositions of bias.”
Identity Evropa is a group “interested in preserving Western culture,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Identity Evropa members helped organize the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the SPLC added.
Details into the case Miles dropped in relation to the former School Resource Officer have not yet been released.
This is a developing story. Send news tips here.
