Parks Snead: Commitment to community

Lynchburg Police Chief Parks Snead often thinks about a young girl he met early in his career as a city police officer.

He had been called to the girl’s house after a fight that left her father beaten and several adults arrested. The girl, about 12 years old, continued to ready her siblings for school in the midst of the chaos.

“You could tell that she had dealt with situations like this before,” Snead said. “I remember thinking what a treasure this child was and wondering if I was even doing the right thing leaving her and her siblings in that house.”

The girl thanked the officers for helping her father and told them that she hoped to see them again next time.

“Real-life situations don’t have Disney endings,” he said. “I thought she was exactly right, that we would see each other again and how many times would we see each other before she was hurt or she learned to live her life the same way her parents were?”

That moment has defined his 24-year career in law enforcement and shaped his commitment to community service.

Snead sat down with The News & Advance last week to discuss his background and where he wants to take the department during his tenure.

What attracted you to a career in law enforcement?
Snead graduated from Davidson College with a degree in English, but decided he did not want to teach and he wasn’t going to write the great American novel. Instead, he worked as a stone mason for a couple years before deciding to apply to the Lynchburg Police Department.

“My mother was the assistant city manager,” he said. “She knew dozens of police officers and several were friends of my father. I remember them one and all to be people with amazing personalities — people who were funny, people who were profound, people who really enjoyed life. That really impressed me as a young man.

“At that point, many of them were in positions of command at the police department. I applied here and in spite of them knowing me well, they hired me anyway and I never regretted it.”

Share a memory from your rookie days.
On Christmas Eve 1984, Snead was driving along Fifth Street with his training officer, Andrew Vest, in the passenger seat.

“We could both see this gentleman staggering and messing with something in his hands. What my training officer realized before I did was that he was attempting to cock a little automatic pistol.

“My training officer said, ‘He’s got a gun. Stop the car!’ and I did. My training officer never forgave me for the fact that I stopped with (him) right beside the man with the gun.

“He clarified rather quickly, ‘Not here! Pull up there and stop.’

“My training officer still tells that story. Of course, I counter by saying, ‘I do what you tell me to. You said stop and I stopped. You should be more specific.’”

What are your plans to diversify the police department in race and gender?
While Lynchburg’s population is 67 percent white and 30 percent black, the police department is 90 percent white and 9 percent black; there are no black women among the department’s 170 sworn

officers.

Snead often tells people of the 1829 quote from Robert Peal, of the London Metropolitan Police Department: “The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police.”

Snead said, “We have every intention of looking like the community we serve, but we are way behind on that.

“It is perfectly legitimate to want to have a police department that looks like the community.”

The department has met with various community members to gather ideas on how to boost minority interest in police work, he said. Officers have been recruiting at job fairs and handing out cards at schools and neighborhood-watch meetings.

Snead thinks that there are many qualified candidates in Lynchburg that can bolster the department’s diversity. Finding candidates means getting involved and out in the

community.

Do you believe there is a gang problem? How do you plan to address the gang-related crimes and associated drug trade in Lynchburg?
“We have a number of these groups that we call criminal gangs that are engaged in drug trafficking because it’s a way to make money. They are also engaged in all crimes that go along with drug trafficking, including violent crimes against people and even graffiti. They are committing crimes in an organized way and that is very dangerous to the community.

“People always ask. ‘what do you do to combat gang activity?’ You do the same thing that you do to combat any form of criminal activity. You find out who is doing it, where they are doing it and you gather the information in a way that you can put these people in jail.

“An important element is that we need to work with the community. The people who live in these neighborhoods are experts.”

Snead said the department’s Concerned Reliable Citizens program trains average people in how to give accurate and thorough information to police that can immediately be acted on. The confidential informants provide details that can be used to effectively prosecute drug dealers in their neighborhoods. He said that has helped to get a handle on gang activity.

What advice would you give to the police officers and the community to make a difference?

“Get out, get involved,” Snead said. “If we don’t do it, no one will.”