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Falls Church police present 2023 NIBRS-based annual report; traffic safety, mental-health response prioritized
Summary
Chief Shround Fard told council the department moved to the FBI27s NIBRS reporting system in 2023, reported a slight increase in Group A offenses but low regional crime rates, and emphasized traffic enforcement, a forthcoming community care team and accreditation work.
Chief Shround Fard presented the Falls Church Police Department27s 2023 annual report on Oct. 28, outlining a shift to the FBI27s National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), operational statistics and planned changes in mental-health response and traffic enforcement.
Fard said NIBRS provides a more detailed offense-level count and that the department27s adoption of the system improves transparency and analysis. "NIBRS is an advanced crime reporting system used by The United States to collect detailed data on crime incidents," he told council, and staff reorganized the report to reflect the new categories and the distinction between incidents and offenses.
Key data and priorities: Fard reported a slight uptick in Group A offenses for 2023 but noted Falls Church27s crime rate remains below state and regional averages; he said the city had one of the lowest crime rates in the Northern Virginia region. He said operations handled nearly 29,000 calls for service in 2023 and the criminal investigations division investigated roughly 286 cases with a closure rate around 74 percent.
Traffic and mental-health response: Council members pressed for traffic-specific data and context for a notable jump in reportable crashes (from 99 to 138 in 2023). Chief Fard and staff pointed to statewide increases and described local efforts to step up enforcement, engineering and education. He said the department is expanding weekly public reporting of traffic data and intends to use dashboards and improved RMS analytics.
On co-responder and mental-health response, Fard described a pilot "community care" program that placed a clinical therapist with the police department and said staff plan to return with a more detailed work session on proposed community care team plans and implementation, referencing a state mandate that affects intervention services.
Accountability and accreditation: Fard said the department is pursuing national accreditation and has begun policy updates and internal affairs reforms, noting the annual report now includes internal-affairs statistics and uses-of-force summaries to increase transparency. He emphasized training and de-escalation with more than 4,800 training hours reported in 2023.
Next steps: The department will publish more traffic dashboards and provide a work session on the community care team and accreditation progress. Council members broadly praised the report and requested additional per-capita and regional benchmarking.
