HomePolice DepartmentA Message from the Chief

A Nationally Accredited Law Enforcement Agency
A Message from the Chief

As the Chief of Police, I would like to commend the professionalism, dedication, and commitment of this Department’s men and women. I also want to acknowledge our exceptional working relationships with our regional law enforcement partners and the strong partnership we have fostered with the Mayor, City Council, and other City staff. I can assure you these relationships are very valuable to us. We will continue to strive to maintain them and the trust of
our citizens as we move forward to fulfill the shared vision we all have for the City of Manassas.

As we continue to come out of COVID restrictions, we can become more involved with our community and begin to implement many of our newly developed community outreach and engagement projects. In 2022, the "HDU" or Historic Downtown Unit was created as a pilot program to address issues in the business district of downtown Manassas. The unit focuses on quality-of-life issues and utilizes community policing and community engagement techniques to find and solve problems in the area. A cadet program was approved and is designed to give those of college age (17-22) the unique experience of gaining on-the-job training and preparing them for a law enforcement career while completing their degree. The department was awarded a Federal Grant to create a Critical Response Team comprised of 1 officer and 1 social worker/mental health specialist. This one-year pilot program will allow the two to work as a team to address ongoing domestic, mental health, and addiction issues within the community. The agency has created the Parent E3 Series, which is a community outreach initiative to educate parents for at-risk teenagers by holding workshop meetings within the community which have been very successful!

We are continually looking to improve how we impact our community and how we interact with you. Communities across the country continue to have discussions about police reform and changes that need to take place. I believe that our response to each of these challenges, supported by our commitment to CALEA accreditation, speaks loudly to our professional reputation as one of the best in the nation! The main focus of the City of Manassas Police Department continues to be its efforts on the increasingly demanding task of ensuring that our community is safe, engaged, and committed to maintaining the high quality of life for which we are known for. The results of the citizen satisfaction survey scored the City of Manassas and the Police Department well above the national average!

In the Spring of 2023, we will proudly host a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and an Open House to invite our citizens to tour our new Public Safety Facility located at 9608 Grant Avenue which houses the police department, as well as the City’s Emergency Operations Center, the Information and Technology Division and the Fire Department's Administrative staff. This state-of-the-art building has been a long time coming and we are very excited to share it with everyone!

We continue to uphold our professional reputation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) as a “Gold Standard with Excellence Agency”. The City of Manassas Police Department was recognized by CALEA as a Gold Standard with Excellence Agency, receiving our third “Meritorious Award” in its seventh accreditation for our continued commitment to setting the standards in law enforcement. I am very proud of the hard work of our staff and their support of my initiatives - our community should be as equally proud! 

Sincerely,

Douglas W. Keen
Chief of Police