City holds public forum for three Police Chief candidates

...after City withheld their names until hours before the public forum.

Yesterday, the public was allowed to hear from three Charlottesville Police Chief candidates at a 2-hour public forum held at Carver Recreation Center and streamed online. The City hired executive recruitment firm POLIHIRE in August to conduct a national search, and Interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers selected the finalists, which was announced on November 22. However, Rogers elected to withhold the names of the candidates until hours before the forum, leaving the media scrambling to research background on the three men. After the forum, one of the major takeaways is that Michael Kochis, current chief of police for the Warrenton Police Department, appears to be the only candidate without some baggage.

Easton McDonald, a current member of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, shot his teenage daughter in 2014 while he was a sheriff's deputy when he mistook her for an intruder, and then crashed his car taking her to the hospital. Interim City Manager Michael Rogers said it wasn't nece…