About the Chesterfield Police Department

In 1988, the Citizens of Chesterfield voted to incorporate the majority of the area currently known as Chesterfield into one of St. Louis County's largest and fastest growing municipalities. Shortly thereafter the City hired Ray Johnson, then the Chief of Police for Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as their first police chief. Johnson immediately began the task of forming an entire police department from scratch, with the assistance of a citizen committee. Johnson began assembling a command and supervisory staff of experienced leaders from area agencies to assist him with the hiring and architecture of the new agency.

On June 1, 1989 at 6:30 AM the City held a brief inaugural ceremony in Chesterfield Valley and the first fifty (50) officers of the Chesterfield Police Department were sworn in and began patrolling the streets of Chesterfield. Since its inception as a police agency, the Chesterfield Police Department has committed itself to professionalism and providing quality police services to its residents and the business community.

The Department has weathered many challenges including providing uninterrupted delivery of police services throughout the acute and long term recovery phases of the Great Flood of 1993, despite completely losing the police headquarters building in the disaster. Throughout its short history the Department has always strived to discover innovative ways of providing service to the community. The Department is also extremely proud of its status as an internationally accredited organization; on July 25, 2015, the agency received its fourth reaccreditation and the Award of Excellence through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). 

The Department has grown over the years in keeping pace with the City's residential and commercial growth. The Department's current authorized manpower is ninety-nine (99) sworn officers and ten (13) non-sworn civilian employees, as well as several citizen volunteers.

The Department is a full service agency, however some services are contracted to the St. Louis County Police Department including dispatching, homicide crime scene services, tactical operations and helicopter search & rescue operations. The department's Division of Special Operations encompasses school resource officers (SROs), a Special Enforcement Unit (SEU), the Traffic Safety Unit and provides contracted, comprehensive police services to the City of Clarkson Valley.  Ten officers are assigned full-time as SROs providing security and safety in all of the City's public and private elementary, middle and senior high schools.  The agency's SEU unit provides enforcement and high visibility patrols in the City's many parks and retail centers.  The Traffic Safety Unit's five officers provide traffic and alcohol enforcement, as well as, traffic accident investigations and re-construction on the City's crowded roadways. 

Members of the Department serve in various capacities with several multi-jurisdictional task forces such as the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, the St. Louis County Drug Task Force, the St. Louis County Crash Investigation Team, we also have one officer assigned full-time as a member of the training staff at the St. Louis County and Municipal Police Academy. 

The Chesterfield Police Department features a full menu of programs for the community including CIT - Crisis Intervention Team, Neighborhood Watch, Adult & Teen Police Academies, Safety Town, Police Explorer Post, Child Car Seat Installations, and the like.

The Department is proud of its modern, state of the art, headquarters facility located in the heart of the City in a building shared with Chesterfield City Hall. The Department has its own police pistol and rifle range training facility in Chesterfield Valley and supplements the in-service training available to its officers through the St. Louis County and Municipal Police Academy with its own in-house firearms and other police training programs. Our officers patrol the 32 square miles of Chesterfield in well equipped police vehicles, police bicycles, on foot, and have a police golf cart and have police UTV vehicles available for specialized patrol in parks and for search and rescue operations.

The City of Chesterfield is divided into six police sectors (see police sector map) for patrolling purposes. These sectors were recently updated based on documented workload assessments and represent a diverse mix of business, light industrial and residential use. The goal of the agency is to provide the best possible police service in the most professional manner possible.