Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Cleveland Spruill was the runner-up for a job heading the police department in Frederick, MD.
Spruill was one of two finalists, but the city of 70,000, located about 50 miles north of Washington, D.C. and west of Baltimore, recently chose Jason Lando, a commander in Pittsburgh, as its new police chief.
Spruill, a native of New York City, spent his teenage years and most of his law enforcement career in Northern Virginia. He has said that the difficulty of traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic motivated him to move closer to his family.
He has served as ACCPD chief since January 2019, arriving from the Charlotte suburb of Huntersville, NC, after Manager Blaine Williams asked for predecessor Scott Freeman’s resignation due to low morale among officers.
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