Welcome The Newest Member Of...

The JADE Task Force Command Group!

Albemarle County Press Release:

Albemarle County is pleased to announce the hiring of Steve Sellers as its new Police Chief effective Tuesday, January 18th. Sellers is a 28 year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department and most recently held the position of Deputy Chief of Police for Fairfax police.

"We are very happy to bring someone of Steve Sellers' caliber to Albemarle County to serve as our next police chief," said County Executive Bob Tucker in making the announcement. "His experience, expertise and proven leadership will certainly continue the outstanding accomplishments and innovative direction of the County's Police Department."

Among the many highlights of his career in Fairfax, Sellers was responsible for developing a plan to improve criminal intelligence and information sharing between local, state and federal law enforcement and helped to create the Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center following the events of September 11, 2001. He also led the Washington Area Sniper Prosecution Taskforce which was responsible for the successful prosecution of Lee Malvo and John Mohammed. In cooperation with his counterpart in Prince William County, Seller's role was to lead the 26 member team responsible for the investigation and prosecution of the Washington area snipers.

From 2004 to 2009, Sellers provided key leadership for a project team responsible for the design, development and implementation of a significant public safety IT system. In addition to this multi-million IT project, Sellers provided leadership for a multi-million project for the construction and design of a regional McConnell Public Safety Transportation Operations Center in Fairfax, VA.

"I am privileged and honored to be afforded with the opportunity to become a member of the County's leadership team, serving as the Chief of Police for Albemarle County," said Sellers in accepting the appointment. "I am thankful to the Board of Supervisors for allowing me the privilege of leading a progressive police agency with outstanding officers and civilian employees and I look forward to serving the citizens of Albemarle County in fighting crime and making our highways safer through collaboration and engagement. As Chief of Police it is my intention to be highly visible, accessible and community oriented and I look forward to building strong working relationships with our citizens, county staff, Board of Supervisors and community leaders as well as each member of the Police Department."

Sellers' family includes his wife Jennifer, twin daughters Jaimie & Justine and stepson Jon.

Sellers holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Virginia Tech. Additionally he is a graduate from the FBI National Academy and is a graduate and alumni of Leadership Fairfax. He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, FBI National Academy Associates, Virginia Association of Chief's of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

You Know He’s Ticked When He Doesn’t Call You Ma’am

For weeks I’ve been mildly musing about a letter Special Agent Jason Trent gave me that’s purportedly from the JADE Task Force Command Group. Actually, it isn’t the letter itself that’s on my mind but rather the people who comprise the group -- people who enigmatically didn’t sign or otherwise provide their names on said letter. I’ve found it incessantly puzzling why the missive merely closes like this:

JADE Task Force Command Group
Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation Captain
University of Virginia Police Chief
Albemarle County Police Chief
Charlottesville City Police Chief

I knew beforehand that Chief John F. Miller is with Albemarle County and Timothy J. Longo is the Police Chief of Charlottesville, and I recently learned the Chief of Police for the University of Virginia is Michael A. Gibson.


The only person I wasn’t sure about was the VSP BCI Captain. I gave that a quick look-up. Sheesh. There are seven possibilities.

I reasoned the best thing to do was ask someone who could tell me. Today I phoned Jason Trent. Holy crab, that man has gone pure hostile! Aside from straightaway flooring me with uncalled-for brusqueness he refused to give me the name of the Captain, choosing instead to sneer “you can use your Internet savvy to find that out.”

Excuze-ay-moi? You. Have got. To be. Freaking. Kidding. Me.

All right, jackhole. I will find out.

Which means I now must go nosing into the working lives of seven Law Enforcement men I primarily had not a splinter of interest in.

I’ve already established there’s just no way to ascertain from the Internet what Captain from the seven is the one connected to the JADE Task Force. I guess I’ll have to incur other savvies to figure it out.

Seven. It’s too bad I don’t have the smarts to detect the obvious guy and start with him.

Rather than giving me a simple answer that would’ve been relegated to periodic echoes deep within the caverns of my brain exclusively, Mr. Trent’s thrown me a (potentially huge) project -- one I can share on I HeArTE JADE.

Way to go not giving me site fodder, sir.

Ya’d Think They Caught Me On a Bridge With a POS Tec-9 and a Twitch

I got another two-page letter, this one from the “JADE Task Force Command Group,” handed to me directly by VSP Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Jason Trent. The content, albeit sterner, is evocative of communications past, complete with a warning about prosecution. It does have a minor new twist, the aroma of which has a distinct smell of burnt trousers. Both the document and the man informed me it will be the last caution I get.

So I’ve been deeply reflecting on it and I realize that since an arrest will cause me to immediately be thrown out of law school, not to mention ruin my fallback prospective career choice of becoming a police officer...

As if.

I am doing nothing illegal. Moreover, after all the horse manure they’ve previously shoveled into my yard it’s not unreasonable for me to believe this latest stuff of theirs is anything other than one more scoopful. Granted these points don’t automatically mean I’m untouchable. Word around the water cooler is JADE is a good bit ticked off I’ve embarrassed them.

That being said, should a significant amount of time go by without an update to I HeArTE JADE I can probably be found on this site. I’ll be the one charged with… okay, I don’t really know what they’ll charge me with -- they’ve never said. But I can guarantee it won’t be Trespassing.