By MADISON BROWN
Fredericksburg Today.
Peters is the Republican candidate for the Virginia’s redrawn 65th House District, which encompasses Fredericksburg City, southern Stafford County, and part of Spotsylvania.
Quotes are edited for clarity, concision, and to protect personal information.
Start by telling me about your education and career up to this point.
I was born in Racine, Wisconsin. I just turned 50. I went to high school in Racine, Wisconsin and I knew from a very early age that I was going in the Marine Corps. I wanted to be in the military and college was not going to be very beneficial to me at that point. So I joined the Marine Corps, and my original desire was to stay there and do 20 years and retire.
I was married, had a daughter, and raised her for the majority for life by myself, which caused me to get out of the Marine Corps. They don’t like you to travel and have a child at home if you just leave them by themselves. So I got out, got an opportunity to work for the Sheriff’s Office, and I’ve been there for the last 20 years. I’ve recently graduated from the FBI National Academy.
I have college credits just going everywhere from Northwestern University to VCU, UVA. I’ve always focused myself on things that apply to what I was passionate about: law enforcement, military and other learning. I’m still continuing my educational goals and one day I will complete them. I love to learn, but I love to learn things about what I actually can apply myself to.
That’s where I am at this point. I’m still learning and I’m still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. But the opportunity to get into politics came up and I’m assuming it as well.
You’ve lived a pretty quiet life as a single dad and law enforcement officer, so what pushed you to run for office?
My law enforcement career, and seeing the importance of quality legislators in Richmond, and how that impacts both your hometown and your career. I don’t think people really understand how what lawmakers do actually affects their careers, and it heavily impacted law enforcement back in 2020.
There were a lot of things that came out of out of what happened across the nation that impacted us locally. A lot of that was done, I think, with the right spirit. But the unintended consequences really make communities less safe, and made it suffer.
So when I got the opportunity and I spoke to some of the elected officials around, inquiring about how we can make a positive impact in Richmond and how we could make some quality changes that we could all agree on, I agreed to step into the role and run for office.
What are some examples of that legislation that hurt your career or that hurt community safety?
If you remember the events of 2020, the tragic loss of life in Minneapolis really had a ripple effect across the country, and some of it was fair. Some of it wasn’t.
If you look at some of the legislation that came across in law enforcement in 2020 was, they really loosened laws that affected traffic safety.
We’ll go over traffic real quick. They made it so [law enforcement] can’t stop for certain violations anymore. Have you noticed there’s been a large increase in the amount of pedestrians in the highway? People standing, soliciting or walking up the roadway?
We saw a big increase because the legislation said that you can no longer stop somebody for walking in the highway, interfering with traffic. So what we found was a lot of complaints from people that are sitting in a red light and, you know, people coming to the window, knocking in their door, staring at them, using their First Amendment right to solicit but doing it in a manner that caused inconvenience and terror throughout the community, so you know a lot of rules were going to forget about the victims of crime.
And you know, there’s big thing for bail reform. So you’re seeing a lot of recidivism: people getting out of jail, recommitting crimes, victimizing other people, and then, you know, they’re still not being held for their record because this reform came about, but it had nothing to do with the victims of crime. It was all about how we treat offenders, which is important.
Everybody deserves fair treatment under the law. Everybody deserves a fair trial. Everybody deserves to be treated fairly. But the offender should never, never be placed above the victim of crime.
So those are some of the smaller things, you know, they went through some school, some school items and made mandatory reporting items that used to be you had to report to law enforcement or school districts. They’ve loosened that. So there a lot of things that schools can deal with that are criminal in the schools if they don’t have to report to law enforcement anymore, so there are a lot of things that happen that really just made our communities less safe, and we have to do something about.
So if elected, what would be your first priority legislation?
Well, I don’t know if there’s a first, but there is a series of things that I want to do.
Number one, I do want to help to roll back some of the loosened law enforcement regulations laws that went through there. We want a good balance of law enforcement officers not being afraid to be proactive because they’re afraid that they’re going to take away qualified immunity or they’re going to be sued for every time they interact with somebody. We want law enforcement to be law enforcement. We want them to be good law enforcement. We want them to do things by those rules, and by the books, and what’s best for the community, but we want them to be able to act without fear of always being sued.
The next thing, mental health, is one of the big issues that that I want to make sure that we’re funding it. Listening to Governor Youngkin a few weeks ago when he came down and was doing the mental health forum and committing money, I like that. That’s encouraging because right now, people who are in mental health crisis don’t have a place to go. There’s very little funding for them to get help, and there’s no aftercare.
And the role of law enforcement in mental health, it really needs to change, which we’re trying to do. If someone calls and says “I’m having a mental health crisis right now,” what happens is they call 911 and we get dispatched the call. And if they meet certain criteria, we handcuff them, because now they’re in our custody, we take them to the hospital, and we put them in the bed and they’re handcuffed to a bed for 8 hours.
There’s such a shortage in Virginia for hospital beds and treatment centers that there are times where people are handcuffed to beds for five to six days. So funding hospitals, funding mental health counselors, funding treatment centers that don’t involve law enforcement getting involved first is a high priority. What happens is if somebody is mental health crisis and the police come in and they take them away and they keep them locked to a bed or they keep them somewhere, the next time that there are in mental health crisis, they’re less and less likely to call us because last time, they got handcuffed to a bed for a week!
We [law enforcement officers] don’t want to do that, but our hands are tied at this point to how we have to do this process. Back in the 2020 session, they came up with what’s called the Marcus Alert. It was a great idea, but it was an unfunded mandate that basically, they’re saying you have to do these things, but we’re not going to pay you to do it to get figured out by yourself. When we come up with these, we have to provide funding. We have to, because unfunded mandates hurt more than they help.
So you’d provide more funding for mental healthcare. And I’m curious, does that mean cutting the police out of these mental health crises?
No, you can never do that. There are some people that are dangerous. If there’s weapons involved, if they’re hurting somebody, if there’s something of that nature that’s criminal going on, yes, we should be involved.
But to the person who just says, “I’m struggling, contemplating ending my life.” They’re not dangerous. We don’t have to be that presence. They should have an avenue to get help without going to us because it reduces conflict, it reduces any chance of misunderstanding.
And your website mentions a mental health crisis in Virginia. Can I get you to characterize that crisis? What’s causing it, how it manifests, and what can be done?
So your key there, again, is funding. There are mental health hospitals across Virginia that are closing, there are mental health hospitals that don’t have the staff because they’re resigning. So the burden then comes back on law enforcement.
It’s so broken, and sitting in a room with somebody who’s in mental health crisis handcuffed to a bed for three to five days is a miserable experience. The law enforcement officer shouldn’t be doing that. It takes them away from doing actual police work. This is a community service, and I don’t think you’ll ever find somebody who says they don’t want to sit with that person and make sure they’re okay. But you know, in one jurisdiction they spent 6000 hours in a hospital with mental health patients in one year. That’s two full time jobs. Two full time people sitting in hospitals for a year with people who are in mental health crisis. And that’s just not the way it should be. So we have to fund, from the state level down to the local level, hospitals, placement, transportation, and services.
I go back to the list to governor, you know, promising funding to start with crisis centers in the jurisdiction that we can take people to and say, “Here’s your first step. We’re not putting you in handcuffs. We’re going to give you a ride because we want to make sure you get there. We’re going to turn you over to a professional.”
Then, having the funding for follow-up care. A lot of people who are experiencing mental health crisis don’t have a lot of insurance. They may not have very well-paying jobs, so they can’t afford that follow-up care, but they need it. We have to be more compassionate as a society.
Especially veterans. You went and did this for us, you saw what you saw defending this country for us. We have an obligation to make sure that you are taken care of when you get back here, because either you do that or people like myself go and we find suicides, and that’s just not acceptable.
You mentioned losing qualified immunity earlier. That’s not something that’s been done in Virginia.
It was a big topic back in 2020. A lot of the Democratic legislators were trying to get rid of qualified immunity, and we cannot let that happen.
A lot of people have a misunderstanding of what qualified immunity is. Really, it’s in the name. You have to qualify, which means your acts and actions of the law enforcement officer have to be legal, just, ethical, and moral, and you have to be operating inside the law. And if that happens, then you’re immune from certain litigation and prosecution.
Well, what they were trying to do is take that away. And there were certain legislators who were thinking that every time, let’s say, there was an officer-involved shooting, that officer should go to trial and be tried for that act, even if it was justified.
It comes up every couple of years that, you know, they want to get rid of it because they say that, you know, there’s too much protection for law enforcement. But if you look across the country at the officers who have done things that weren’t right, they didn’t qualify for qualified immunity because what they did was not within the law or it violated certain standards.
Getting rid of [qualified immunity] is driving law enforcement officers away. If I go into this profession and I say that if I do my job properly, if I’m a good law enforcement officer, if I’m following the rules and the law and regulations, and something happens where it’s either an officer involved shooting or something happens to a suspect, then I should be covered by the law because I was doing what I was supposed to do. Now, on the other hand, if I’m out there going rogue and doing things that are outside violating people’s civil rights, then yeah, I don’t get qualified immunity. But I can’t expect people to walk into this career knowing that every interaction they have with somebody can lead to litigation. And that’s why we had a lot of people leave law enforcement for the last couple of years because they’re so scared qualified immunity will go away.
It keeps coming up to Virginia that we want it to go away, we want it to go away, we want it to go away, and a lot of the Democratic leaders were saying that it’s hard to attract people to this career when they believe that every interaction they have is going to lead to them being sued, losing their home, future pensions, and everything like that. It’s a fight that we’re going to continue to impress upon both sides of the aisle. That that’s not the way to go.
Many people who have been involved in situations have been denied qualified immunity because what they did wasn’t right. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But once they’re doing things right, if they’re involved in situations, they should be allowed qualified immunity because they were acting in good faith. They were acting in accordance with the law, and they weren’t violating human rights.
How many law enforcement officers have left the profession?
Oh, that’s a good question. I mean, we had a turnover. I can’t give you a number. I just know that, seeing it from the inside of that profession and seeing people walk away and find different careers and, you know, talking to other law enforcement leaders, it’s hard. It’s so hard to recruit just because of those issues.
I also wanted to talk about education because you say that it’s a key issue for you. What do you see as the problems facing schools in this district, and what you would want to do about it from the state legislature?
Number one is funding. There is a huge funding shortage that is running qualified people away from the profession.
We’re seeing a lot of first year students or teachers getting into profession, staying here and then leaving because there’s discipline issues. We talk about restorative justice and the juveniles, we talk about lot of different issues that are out of the teachers’ control but they’re left to deal with. So funding is #1, making sure that the teachers, the administrators, the school districts get funded properly so that they can hire the best quality teachers they possibly can.
Then giving the teachers and the staff the ability to make good decisions for their students, and giving the parents that involvement. So we want to have that great balance of putting faith back in our school administrators. We want to make sure that we’re relying on our superintendents because I think a lot of what’s happened is we have kind of gone away from trusting them, and they’re the professionals here and they’re giving good input and guidance into how the district is supposed to. So, you know, funding is #1.
We saw a bill this last year that was introduced that would set specific guidelines on how disruptive individuals in the schools, children, how they’re to be dealt with. Right now, teachers are using that 90/10 rule. They’re spending 90% of their time on 10% of the kids that really should be taken out of that classroom, because that’s not the environment they can learn in, but they’re being forced to stay.
The bill was trying to standardize that, to say, look, if a kid meets this criteria, we’re going to place them somewhere else where they can get the quality education they need, but they won’t be so disruptive.
That bill was killed because — you know, I don’t know why it was killed, but it was killed. But it’s something that they really need. They’re struggling with kids that are challenged and again, everybody deserves a public education. Everybody deserves a quality education, but they’re spending so much time on problems kids that are being put back in the classroom, back in the classroom, back in the classroom. And it’s disrupting the rest of that class and they can’t learn and it’s really frustrating teachers and parents.
So that bill said that these children would be put “somewhere else” – where?
Well, that’s another issue that we have is, where do you place them? I mean, the schools do have programs in place for kids that struggle in the regular classroom. But again, it’s finding those teachers, finding those classrooms, finding that placement for those young people where they can thrive and they can learn.
And that’s another challenge as you lose teachers. There’s schools right now that open next week and they still don’t have enough teachers to fill every classroom. So right now you’ve got a classroom, and everybody’s coming to open house and they’re going to meet their teachers. But there’s no teacher there because they just can’t bring those teachers in.
Changing that culture of putting the teachers back in control of their classrooms and getting them that support for discipline and making sure all the kids have a place to learn, to have a place to grow and be successful, that’s a big challenge. But I think it starts with our superintendents and our teachers and our principals, letting them tell us what they need to be successful.
One of the things that I learned very early is it’s very hard for me as a cop to tell the teacher how to do her job or his job. And it’s very hard for me to legislate for somebody that I know very little about. But giving me that input that we can take to the General Assembly and say, “This is what the professionals are saying they need to be successful,” is a piece that I think we’ve missed for quite a long time.
I also wanted to ask you about traffic congestion. It’s something that everybody around here runs on, but what would you propose to do if you were the office?
Well, first of all, we have to make sure that the funding for projects for this area stay in this area. My opponent is notorious for sending funds that we’re supposed to use for traffic projects in the Fredericksburg area to Hampton Roads. And that’s just unconscionable. You can’t do that.
If you look at our region, Stafford, Fredericksburg, and Spotsylvania, there’s two ways to get through from Maine to Miami through this area. That’s Route 1 and I-95. We’re looking at thousands of cars a day that are just commuting or traveling up and down that road. When one of those is impacted then the other one becomes impassable.
The first thing is making sure that we’re coordinating with our local partners and everyone and we have a good plan on what we want to see growth. It’s responsible growth, responsible development. Sometimes we have to say, “We want this new business, but what are we gonna do with infrastructure first?”
Mostly what really irritates me is the fact that we’re sending funding that should be used for projects going up and down this corridor to places that didn’t agree to that money. I mean, it was supposed to be for us. So we want proper plans. We want funding. We want the money to come through.
This area is not going to stop growing, so we have to keep pressure on the people who hold the budget strings to put the proper amount of money into this area’s infrastructure so we can keep commerce going. Ultimately, traffic equals commerce and commerce being stopped is millions upon millions of dollars every minute that are being stopped. So we have to fund the projects and we have to look at responsible growth and we have to work with the counties on what they’re trying to do. We want to grow. But right now it’s horrible.
So when you think about that responsible growth, what does that look like to you tangibly? Does it look like building more roads? More train lines? What would you do?
It’s a combination. It’s an active effort between all of our stakeholders to come to reasonable solutions. We’re not in a place where we can build more roads because all the property is where it’s going to be. So what do we promote? Do we promote more rails, and other ways of getting around? Do we give people incentives to do that? How does that look? Again, I go back to the fact that I’m not an expert, but I know a lot of people in this area who have very valuable input that can help us make those decisions for responsible growth. That’s what we need to start doing is bringing those stakeholders in, finding out what works for everybody, making those compromises and then being responsible in our building.
When people think of your campaign, is there a particular issue or policy that you would want them to associate with it?
No. I want them to look at me and say that this is going to be somebody who represent everybody in the 65th district and every issue that they bring to the table.
One of the things I think we lost is my opponent became very tunnel vision on his issues and who he would support and what he would bring to the table, and it wasn’t an issue from the masses or from the community. I want people to look at me and know that my career in Marine Corps, my career in law enforcement, both of those had a common theme of neutrality.
When I go to a call in law enforcement, I can’t pick sides immediately. I have to gather the facts. I have to listen to everybody. So I want people to look at me and say that whatever issue you bring to me, whether you agree or disagree, we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to find a solution that we can take to Richmond that helps the entire district, and everybody gets represented.
We can fight, we can go back and forth. I enjoy a good conversation. I enjoy learning. But we’re going to do what’s best for the entire 65th; what supports the people in the 65th and what makes usone of the best districts in Virginia. I want to be one of the best representatives of that. I want people looking to say, “Well, you disagree. Well, we agreed, but we had a conversation and I’m happy that we have at least a resolution that everybody can be a part of.”
