Former D.C. cop is running for FXCO sheriff
Former police officer Kelvin Garcia is running in the Democratic Primary as a more progressive alternative to Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid.
Garcia was a police officer with Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department for 11 years and is currently a law clerk with a firm providing immigration services. He is also a coach for the boys’ freshman football team at Herndon High School.
“I believe our justice system should serve everyone in our community and keep our neighborhoods safe,” Garcia says. “Failures of leadership have left our communities vulnerable and underserved.”
The Fairfax County sheriff’s office oversees the Adult Detention Center and provides security for the courts, among other responsibilities.
Kincaid, who is running for re-election, has been Fairfax County sheriff since 2014 and is the first woman to serve in that position.
One of Garcia’s top priorities is providing job training and placement, housing assistance, and rehabilitation programs to former inmates. He also says he will not cooperate with ICE.
“Most of the people in the jail look like me,” he says. “Systemic failures in our society put people on a path that leads to criminality. We need to invest in people as they leave our facilities to break the revolving door that brings them right back into the system.”
Garcia told the Washington Post he would house transgender people in units based on their identities rather than their sex. That differs from the sheriff’s current policy. In 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that policy discriminatory, ruling in favor of a transgender woman who had been incarcerated with men.
Garcia also said he would make incarcerated people’s first 30 minutes of calls to family members free.
More progressive than the current one? No thanks.
Sorry, we need a former US Army general to clean up this mess.
Good gracious *shakes head*
Read his LinkedIn. Talk about directionless. He should be an HR person or a social Justice blogger, not a cop.
This one is not getting my vote.
Keeping inmates from recidivism sounds good to me. The revolving door just sends more criminals out who have no way or incentive to live without going back to their life of crime. And curbing the outrageous costs inmates pay for phone calls sounds good to me too. The more prisoners can connect with their families, especially children, the more incentive they have to go straight and stay out of jail. We need to learn more from the systems used in countries that have less crime, fewer prisoners, and successful rehabilitation programs vs. the for-profit systems in the U.S.
Community policing is a concept that I hope will take root nationwide. He has my vote – although I hope he changes his stance and learns that he must cooperate with ICE and all law enforcement entities. That is the only way that they will internalize what he could potentially teach through demonstrable example.