Chief Andy Penn, ACPD
Interview with Andy Penn, Chief of Arlington County Police Department
The Arlington County Police Department was formed on Feb. 1, 1940 with 9 officers and has now grown to an authorized strength of 377 sworn officers and approximately 100 civilian members. Its mission is reduction of crime and making Arlington a place where all people can live safely and without fear.
Q: Review 2025 — What were the challenges and successes?
Andy Penn, Chief of ACPD:
The challenge has been to fill our 70 vacant positions to return to our authorized capacity of 377 sworn officers.
But the success for me is the wonderful people who make up the ACPD with the safety of the community as their guiding principle. We have been short staffed for years and are currently operating 70 officers short. But it is incredible the staff really stepped up to provide for the safety of the community and make sure there wasn’t a drop in the quality of the service they were receiving. They worked additional hours and overtime. It centers on people to make the ACPD what it is, to make a positive difference every day in our community.
Q: Looking Ahead to 2026 What are the challenges and the goals?
Penn: Our goal is to continue to focus on our four initiatives:
(1) Crime control prevention — identify and hold people accountable and keep crime from occurring.
(2) Transportation safety to keep the roads safe for everybody including cars, bikes, scooters. Police officers in the community can provide enforcement but they can’t be everywhere all the time so automated safety such as the new PhotoSPEED program around Arlington school zones assist with the safety efforts. We also believe education plays a key role.
(3) Community engagement. I truly believe we are at our very best when we work as a team in collaboration to provide for the safety of the community.
(4) Wellness and development. Our wellness initiative and professional development for officers is an important part of the overall package. We focus on career development and leadership skills—there are so many aspects to the police profession.
In 2026 we have a real opportunity to rebuild our ranks with the new starting salary of an officer taking effect on July 1 at $90,000, now the highest starting salary in the region. There is a big hole to fill. This is a huge opportunity to do some of the things we weren’t able to do with limited strength.
The challenge has been to fill the vacant positions. We are selective in hiring people we think will be successful on the force and hire only between 2.5-4 percent of the applicants. But we have a new class of 20 who just graduated from the Police Academy and should be operational around November. It takes almost a year from the day a police officer is hired — 22 weeks of police academy training, then 3 weeks of localized training, followed by field training. It all adds up.
So we will still be operating at reduced numbers but will find ways to be effective and efficient until we're back to full strength.