Jacocks to ride into the sunset

When 19-year-old Jake Jacocks joined the Virginia Beach Police Department as a desk clerk in 1971, the city didn't have a Neptune Festival or Mount Trashmore. Virginia Beach hadn't been confronted with the racial tension that led, 18 years later, to the Greekfest riots. It was simply a suburb of Norfolk on the cusp of dizzying growth, and Jacocks was along for the ride.

In the nearly four decades since - from 1973, when he was sworn in as a patrol officer, through this week, when he announced his retirement - Chief A.M. "Jake" Jacocks has kept his city safe. Of all his accomplishments - he improved training and raised police standards, increased his department's diversity and kept it free of corruption and cronyism - the most important is that he kept us safe.

Jacocks is a cop's cop, a quick-witted, straight-talking guy who stands up to bullies and worries about people. He sees to it that his officers are prepared and backs them up when they need it. He is quick to ferret out bad cops. He has never forgotten that he is foremost a public servant.

Jacocks was chosen chief 10 years ago after a nationwide search. Unlike the professional chiefs who move from city to city, Jacocks has been here all his life.

He proved, with his own promotion and by promoting from within the ranks, that officers can advance in Virginia Beach. He has demanded, by requiring college degrees of his lieutenants and master's degrees of his captains, that officers better themselves. And he has shown, by backing up officers when they ticketed high-ranking politicians, that the city can't be bullied or bought.

Like every good leader, Jacocks has learned from mistakes. He takes it personally when the city's reputation suffers, as it did in 1989 with rioting at the Oceanfront and again in 2007, after two Virginia Beach teens were killed by a drunken driver who was in the country illegally.

He has dealt with heartache within the department, having buried two of his men killed in the line of duty. In the past year, two officers have been charged with drunken driving. Last month, Jacocks, an avid hunter, earned the ire of the gun-rights community when he asked the governor to veto a bill allowing concealed weapons in bars. Guns and alcohol don't mix, he said. That law won't make our citizens safer.

Crime statistics show Virginia Beach is among the safest cities in the country. Jacocks has worked hard to build relationships, to plan for emergencies, to move Virginia Beach methodically and safely from a resort town and bedroom community to Virginia's largest city.

Now, as the City Council prepares to pare the number of police as part of its budget cuts, Jacocks is revving up his motorcycle and saying goodbye to the department he professionalized. He leaves us with a model for what a law enforcement leader should be - and impossible shoes to fill.