Fort Belvoir police officer receives award; Crawford promoted to training officer

Fort Belvoir, Va. (April 10, 2014) - Fort Belvoir Police Officer 1st Lt. Scott Crawford was named the 2013 Civilian Police Officer of the Year by the Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce in a ceremony Monday at the Fort Belvoir Police Department Headquarters.

He was nominated for the Civilian Police Officer of the Year award for his leadership and professionalism, said John Cerra, Law Enforcement Division, chief.

"He is the epitome of professionalism. His uniform always looks great; he's always doing the right thing," Cerra said.

"It's a pretty prestigious award," he added. "They actually vote on this at the Chamber of Commerce."

During the same ceremony, Crawford was promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant to take on a new position: training officer for the Law Enforcement Division.

Formerly, Crawford served as a watch commander for the patrol division -- the senior police officer on a shift. Now, he's part of the command team.

"It's not every day we get to promote one of our own, and Lieutenant Crawford, I think, is almost made for this position," Cerra said. "He loves training. He's a very knowledgeable, very professional police officer and to bring him up in rank and make him our training officer is a good thing. It's going to be great for the organization and great for him professionally."

There was also a lot of competition for the training officer position, with around 160 total applicants, he added.

Crawford has 22 years of experience as a civilian police officer at local, state and federal levels. He joined the Fort Belvoir police force three years ago. He is also an officer in the Army National Guard.

"I'm very honored by this award," Crawford said during the ceremony. "Not too long after I got here, the military side of house called up and I had to go away for a year, so I kind of dedicated myself last year to putting forth my best effort here and hopefully I did that. I tried to put a lot of effort into the training, into making my shift the best it could be. I look forward to working with you in another role and hopefully we can make some good things happen."

The Fort Belvoir Police Department is part of the Directorate of Emergency Services. For more information, visit https://www.belvoir.army.mil/des/lawenforcement.asp.