JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Chris Perkins, Roanoke's acting police chief, speaks to neighborhood watch leaders earlier this month at the Alexander-Gish House in Old Southwest. Perkins began his Roanoke police career in 1992 and quickly became immersed in community-oriented policing.

JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Roanoke acting Police Chief Chris Perkins said the department should help residents find solutions to neighborhood problems.

Rookie cop Chris Perkins patrolled Roanoke when prostitutes roamed downtown and drug dealers menaced Old Southwest.

The city is "light years" from those days in the early 1990s, said Perkins, 40, a deputy chief who was named acting police chief July 1 when Joe Gaskins retired.

"If crime is down, we'd love to say it is because of the police department," Perkins said. "But it's not. It's the community deciding they've had enough of these issues."

Perkins, one of dozens of candidates for the chief's job, invokes community and technology in his brand of crime-fighting, qualifications that City Manager Chris Morrill said he's looking for in the next police chief.

"He definitely has the skills and the experience, and I think more than that, the ability to connect with neighborhoods and the business community, to make him highly competitive," Morrill said.

"It's my job to lose," said Perkins.

Roanoke's other deputy chief, Tim Jones, said he did not apply for the job.

Perkins began his policing career in Roanoke in 1992, when the department was tiptoeing into what's called community-oriented policing.

Perkins was assigned in 1995 to work in public housing developments, including Hunt Manor, Villa Heights and Lincoln Terrace, now known as Villages of Lincoln.

He attended community meetings, knocked on doors and familiarized himself with neighborhood problems, which he said included gangs.

He and fellow officers alerted city code enforcement agencies of violations, executed search warrants based on neighbor tips and investigative work and busted drug dealers. They even went after people stealing cable television.

The difference between the Lincoln Terrace of those days and the one he sees now is like "night and day" because of community-oriented policing, he said.

Perkins is a native of Marion, in Smyth County, and son of a man who served as part-time sheriff's deputy and jail nurse. His childhood friends were sons and daughters of law enforcement officers. Through his father, he met lawyers and judges.

He decided as a teenager to pursue a career in law enforcement. So did his younger sister, now a deputy in the Roanoke Sheriff's Office, and his younger brother, who also became a Roanoke cop.

At the University of Tennessee, Perkins studied forensic anthropology. By the time he graduated in 1991, could identify a bone by feel.

He applied to the Roanoke Police Department at the suggestion of the Marion Police Chief Mike Roberts.

"I'm a small-town guy," Perkins said. "I had no desire to go to the FBI or DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and be shipped to Detroit."

He said he interviewed for Roanoke and almost didn't get the job because the hiring officers feared he had too much education and wouldn't stick around. They took a chance.

"I stayed because I loved it," Perkins said of the job and the city.

Perkins' career has included work in patrol, vice and major crimes, where he investigated officer-involved shootings and supervised detectives. He also was the accreditation manager, making sure the department complied with more than 300 performance standards measured by a national police organization.

He was known as a thorough investigator.

"When we got one of his cases, we were confident he'd done the legwork," said Neil Horn, a former assistant commonwealth's attorney now in private practice.

Lincoln Terrace made Perkins a believer in community policing, he said. The concept involves building relationships with residents, neighborhood groups, businesses, schools and government resources, such as the city code enforcement office, to identify problems and solutions.

"He's got an eye toward the agency, and the community, and how things are going to impact both," said Capt. Curtis Davis, who started as a Roanoke police officer three years before Perkins.

Perkins said he sees the department's role as not only protecting residents, but empowering them to take ownership of neighborhood problems, and then aid them in finding solutions.

When there is a problem in a neighborhood, residents often ask officers: "What are you going to do about it?" Perkins said.

He responds: "Look at yourself. What have you done?"

"If the community itself doesn't take a stand, we're just scratching the surface of the problem," he said.

Duane Howard, a Southeast Roanoke activist and frequent police critic who was arrested at a city council meeting in 2005, described his past relationship with the department as "horrible." But he said he's found genuine concern in Perkins, who listens, responds and follows up -- sometimes unsolicited. Despite his rise through the ranks, Perkins never showed he was too big, or too busy, to attend to community concerns and problems, Howard said.

Howard said he recently received an e-mail from Perkins informing him about a neighborhood shooting investigation.

"I just find that shockingly impressive," Howard said. "We never saw anything like that from Gaskins."

Private investigator Paul Holt called Perkins an advocate for residents.

"If I have a complaint about an officer and call Chris, he calls back within the same day and has a resolution," Holt said. "It's never about that blue shield. He takes up for what's right, not just who is in uniform."

If he wins the chief's job, Perkins said he'll push community policing and technology.

In the past year, he led the department's embrace of social media websites Twitter and Facebook to spread information about crimes and crime-prevention events.

"We've got to reach people on a different level," Perkins said. "We're still not there, but the idea is, 'Let's get out there.' "

Hollins University professor Jong Ra, who taught Perkins in several classes including one on research methods and statistical analysis, said Perkins "seemed so given to adapting to fast-emerging data on crime control."

Bedford Police Chief James Day, a former Roanoke deputy chief, said Perkins uses data to come up with efficient solutions to community problems.

"He is just very good in the community," Day said. "He's very innovative. He can come up with programs that are very timely and can work for the good of the community."

Perkins considers the community his greatest advantage over other candidates for the chief's job.

"An outside person brings nothing that I don't have. I know the people in this community, I know the community issues and problems, I know the resources of this community, and I know the department," he said.