Office of the Deputy Chief

Tracy D. Branch, Sr. is the Deputy Chief of Police responsible for providing leadership and oversight for the Department's three Bureaus (Investigations Bureau, Operations Bureau, and Support Bureau) as well as the Standards and Research Unit.

The Investigations Bureau includes: the Criminal Investigations Section, Vice and Narcotics Section, Criminal Intelligence Section, Crime Line Coordinator and Public Information Officer.

The Support Bureau includes: the Records Management Unit, the Emergency Dispatch Center, the Professional Standards Section, and the Law Enforcement Training Academy.

The Operations Bureau includes: all five Police Precincts, the Special Operations Section, the Crime Prevention Unit, the Police Chaplain Unit, the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT), the Underwater Search and Recovery Team, the Marine Patrol Unit, the Traffic Enforcement Unit, the K-9 Unit, the Warrant Unit, the Auxiliary Police Unit, the Animal Services Unit, the Community Resources Unit and the Police Explorers.

The Standards and Research Unit includes: Internal Inspections, Policy Development and the Accreditation team which manages and maintains the files and assorted documentation required for the national accreditation process through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).

The main focus of the police department is to partner with citizens and other City Departments to identify, prioritize, and solve contemporary problems such as crime, fear of crime, illegal drugs, and neighborhood decay, with the goal of improving the overall quality of life in Chesapeake.