Loudoun County Sheriff's Office

Loudoun County Sheriff's Office
Loudoun County Sheriff's Office
Common name	Loudoun County Sheriff
Abbreviation	LCSO
Agency overview
Employees	845
Annual budget	$87.9 million
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction	Loudoun, Virginia, U.S.
	Map of Loudoun County Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction
Size	521 square miles (1,350 km2)
Population	420,959 (2020)
Legal jurisdiction	Loudoun County
Governing body	County (United States)
Constituting instrument	Yes;
General nature	Local civilian police;
Operational structure
Headquarters	Leesburg, Virginia
Deputies	650
Civilians	199
Agency executive	Michael L. Chapman, Sheriff;
Website
	Official Website

The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office (LCSO) is the primary law enforcement agency within Loudoun County, Virginia and is the largest Sheriff's Office in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The agency is currently headed by Sheriff Michael L. Chapman who was last re-elected in 2019.

Organization

LCSO is headed by the Sheriff and is divided into three bureaus, each led by a Chief Deputy with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel: Field Operations, Investigations, and Administrative and Corrections. Bureaus are made up of one or more divisions, sections, and units.^[1]

Rank Structure


Insignia	Title^[2]	Responsibilities / Information
	Sheriff	Commander of the department.
	Undersheriff (Colonel)	Second-in-command of the department; rank no longer used.
	Chief Deputy (Lieutenant Colonel)	Commands a Bureau.
	Major	Commands a Division.
	Captain	Commands a Station or a Section.
	First Lieutenant	Assistant Commander of a Station or a Section.
	Second Lieutenant	Commander of a Unit or a patrol shift.
	Sergeant	Supervisor within a Unit or patrol shift.
	Master Deputy Sheriff	Competitive senior rank requiring 12 years of service.
	Deputy First Class	Automatic promotion.
	Deputy Sheriff	Automatic promotion.
	Probationary Deputy

Potential Transition to Police Department

Shortly after being re-elected in 2019, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Phyllis Randall proposed transitioning policing to a new police department while the sheriff would only be responsible for court related duties as is done in Prince William County and Fairfax County. Randall said the reason she proposed this is "I just simply don’t believe that law enforcement should be political."^[3] However, Sheriff Michael L. Chapman has stated that "[Loudoun Residents] are happy with the service they are getting, and it’s almost like, 'Why is there going to be a move to try and fix something that’s not broken?' it just seems to me to be a matter of just exercising power and control."^[4]

In 2012, the Board of Supervisors asked for a report about a potential transition and the commission responsible strongly recommended keeping the current system citing decreased state funding due to low crime rates and the idea that a police chief would be equally political when appointed.^[5]

To implement a police department a referendum is required and must be approved by voters in the county and enacted by the Virginia General Assembly.^[6]^[7]

In 2022, the Board of Supervisors announced that it would no longer seek the transition following an extensive report on the subject was released by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The report recommended that the transition not go forward due to several reasons, including the cost (estimated to be between $200 and $300 million), the LCSO's very high satisfaction rates among county citizens, and the low crime rate of the county.^[8]

List of sheriffs

List of sheriffs of Loudoun County, Virginia
Number	Name	Term		Electoral History
1st	Aeneas Campbell	1757 – Unknown	Independent	Appointed in 1757 at the creation of Loudoun County^[9]^[10]
Unknown	Elijah Viers White	1867 – Unknown	Independent	Elected 1867^[11]
Unknown	Thomas W. Edwards	January 1, 1908 – December 31, 1923	Independent	Elected 1907 Re-elected 1911 Re-elected 1915 Re-elected 1919
Unknown	Eugene Adrian	1930s	Independent	Elected 1931^[12]^[13]
Unknown	S. Paul Alexander	January 1, 1940 – June 5, 1951	Democratic	Elected 1939^[14] Re-elected 1943^[15] Re-elected 1947 Resigned^[16]
Unknown	Carroll S. Hutchison	June 6, 1951 – December 31, 1951	Independent	Appointed^[17]^[18]
Unknown	Roger Franklin Powell	January 1, 1952 – December 31, 1959	Democratic	Elected in 1951^[12] Re-elected in 1955 Lost re-election
Unknown	Maurice "Max" Dwyer	January 1, 1960 – December 31, 1963	Democratic	Elected in 1959^[12]
Unknown	Robert Willis Legard	January 1, 1964 – December 31, 1979	Democratic	Elected 1963^[19] Re-elected 1967 Re-elected 1971 Re-elected 1975 Lost re-election^[20]
Unknown	Donald L. Lacy	January 1, 1980 – December 31, 1983	Republican	Elected in 1979^[21] Retired^[22]
Unknown	John R. Isom	January 1, 1984 – December 31, 1995	Democratic	Elected in 1983^[23] Re-elected in 1987 Re-elected in 1991^[24] Lost re-election
Unknown	Stephen O'Neil Simpson	January 1, 1996 – December 31, 2011	Republican	Elected in 1995^[25] Re-elected in 1999^[26] Re-elected in 2003^[27] Re-elected in 2007^[28] Lost re-election
Unknown	Michael Louis Chapman	January 1, 2012 – present	Republican	Elected in 2011^[29] Re-elected in 2015^[30] Re-elected in 2019^[31] Re-elected in 2023