COBB COUNTY, Ga. — In May 2022, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to promote Stuart VanHoozer to Chief of the Cobb County Police Department.
Just over a year later, 11Alive sat down with VanHoozer to talk about his time as chief of the force, his accomplishments and the goals still to come.
"I've been promoted multiple times in my career. You have butterflies a little bit, you're a little nervous going into a new environment and a new position with new people... but this one, the promotion was big and the responsibility was much heavier on me than I anticipated it being," he said.
VanHoozer explained that with this role, came more responsibilities, worries and prayers.
"I prayed before, but I didn't pray before like I do now," he said. "I do worry and pray for my officers and I worry and pray for my community a lot."
VanHoozer said that upon stepping into this role, his goals included increasing communication and trust between police and the community.
"The outcry against police, even though I believe it's not prominent, is loud," he said. "When the police get in a police car with the badge and the gun, they're doing it because of a care and concern for justice and good and to protect people. If I can't link that back to the people that we protect, then I'll never have trust."
He said part of building trust will also come with changes to their use of force tactics.
"We want to increase the level of practice [officers are] able to have so that when we see a use of force occur in the field, it's more likely to be safer for the officers, safer for the suspect, and help the officers be more confident, controlled, calm, same with the suspect," he explained.
Another key goal of his included the recruitment and retention of officers. VanHoozer said last year, nearly 100 officers left the department, with 50 officers – the bulk of them – leaving between January and June.
"That's unprecedented in this county," he said.
He said that's due to many officers - some who were hired in the 90s - retiring, as well as some officers leaving for another department, or leaving the industry as a whole.
"Our application numbers were 400% higher 10 years ago. Our success rate on the hiring is still not great, I will not lie, but we are making strides there," he added.
Those strides are in part, thanks to an investment they've made in advertising.
"If I could be just blunt, we didn't have much of an advertising budget at all," he explained. "So we've pretty much been hiring just without really much funding. We were able to get some funding through a federal grant and so now we're just getting to the money and we're just being able to start spending it. We started three weeks ago Monday doing some advertising online."
He explained they have also partnered with the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to attend several job fairs, and have addressed pay and compression issues.
"We have seen some increased application numbers this year. We've increased our spot starting pay over $50,000 now," he said. "I also think that people enjoy policing in Cobb County because there is a lot of good support for our officers here."
Four months into his new role, he faced one of the most challenging moments as chief, with the deaths of Cobb County Sheriff's Deputy Marshall Ervin Jr. and Deputy Jonathan Koleski. Both died in the line of duty.
"You had the immense sadness of that night contrasted against the bravery of people that run into danger for two heroes that they didn't know personally, but they would die for just trying to save their life or even remove them from that scene," he recalled. It reiterated the seriousness of the job, the gravity of the responsibility, and also the appreciation for our officers."
VanHoozer said that moment took him back to 1999 when his department lost two officers.
"Came back very, very quickly for me, for my wife, and for some of the members of this department that are still here from 1999," he said. "That experience that night at the hospital when our two officers died... and so that was a memorable case."
He explained that going forward, they have many new ideas and programs that he plans on bringing to the department, but his mission of building communication and trust between the police department and the community will always be priority.
"It's been an honor and at the same time, it's been... stressful. It's been exciting and it's been fun. I think it becomes more enjoyable the longer I do it because I get used to the stress and I'm starting to see some accomplishments that I want to see in the department come to fruition," he said.
To read more on VanHoozer, click here. To learn more about becoming a police department for the Cobb County Police Department, click here.
