Lynchburg Police Chief's Last Day

Today, Charles Bennett will relinquish his car, his weapon, his office and a host of other items — now memories of his service as Lynchburg’s chief of police.
Bennett’s final day on the force, at least the local force, will be bittersweet, he said Thursday.
“I feel very good,” Bennett said. “Certainly I’m going to miss the people, they’re some of my best friends.”
But he said that, at 60 years old, the timing was right for his next big step. He served as Lynchburg police chief for 13 years.
“I’ve been a police officer now for almost 40 years and I had always sort of looked at 60 as a time to make another change,” he said.
That change encompasses not only Bennett’s retirement, but the next stage of his life — a police-oriented assignment in the Middle East hotbed of Pakistan.
Working with the U.S. Justice Department’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), Bennett will work to coordinate police and border control agencies, specifically on Afghanistan’s border.
Bennett said the force will work to secure the borders of the country, hoping to keep out terrorists from the surrounding areas, among other tasks.
Originally slated to perform his duties in Iraq, Bennett said Pakistan makes just as much sense from a security standpoint. The date of his departure hasn’t been finalized, but he’ll leave for Islamabad within the next few weeks.
“The stability of Pakistan, in its relationship to Afghanistan and the fact that the border area is where a lot of these terrorists are operating … makes Pakistan a really critical partner in the worldwide fight against terrorism.”
Bennett said he’s encouraged that his retirement won’t mean he stops working.
“One of the things I think that helps make the transition less melancholy is the fact that I am going to be doing something that I think is important and challenging, and perhaps the most challenging thing that I’ve ever done.”
He said he’s not worried about his ability to perform the job, either.
“I’m blessed with reasonably good health,” he said, “and I think that I do have some skills and abilities that can still be useful to people.”
Though the job, by definition, implies certain safety concerns, Bennett explained his attitude toward risks.
“If (safety) is your overriding concern, I guess you’d never leave your house.”
He also said he’s not under any illusions that the job will be easy.
“All of these assignments are very challenging,” he said. “There’s absolutely no guarantee of success, but somebody’s got to try.”
And for Bennett, the willingness to try stems not only from his commitment to his job, but from a sense of responsibility.
“If we (the United States) have the ability and we have the resources, and other countries ask us for our help, we owe that to them,” he said.
But above the sense of duty even, Bennett said there’s another reason to give this project his attention.
“If we can help bring stability to these countries, then perhaps we can bring back our armed forces personnel, because they’re not going to be able to come home until there is some sort of stability.”
Finally, Bennett said he wants the job because of his commitment to “professionalizing the police profession.”
“I’ve tried to do that in our country,” he said, “and I’m going to have an opportunity to do that in another country.”
All the anticipation is making it difficult for Bennett to settle down.
“I’ve been joking with people that I have the beheaded chicken syndrome,” he said. “It’s rolling over me kind of like a steamroller.”
Bennett said he leaves the Lynchburg Police Department in the capable hands of Maj. Parks Snead, along with a staff to which he gave nothing but praise.
“They have done an outstanding job in the almost 14 years I’ve been there,” he said.
“I think that I really did the very best I could the whole time I was here,” Bennett said. But he predicted, “they’re going to, undoubtedly, do a better job than I did, when they get the chance.”