Chief Daryl R. Gaines began his law enforcement career when he joined the Baltimore Police Department in March of 2001. Upon graduation from the Police Academy he was assigned to the Patrol Division in the Northwestern District, where he spent the majority of his career. While assigned to the Northwestern District, he spent significant time working in the district’s Flex Unit and Narcotics Division, and he also spent 2 years working in the Violent Crimes Impact Division. While assigned to the Northwestern District, Chief Gaines worked closely with both faculty and students, as well as with campus security at Baltimore City Community College whose campus was located within the northwestern geography. He would often speak with both students and faculty about campus safety and conduct meetings to discuss things like crime initiatives, and crime that was occurring both on and around campus, and often engaged in joint initiatives with campus security. In June of 2008, he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and was assigned to the Southwestern District, where he spent 6 months working as a patrol supervisor. He then returned to the Northwestern District where he spent most of his time supervising the District’s Mountain Bike Unit, and Operations Unit. During his time as a Sergeant in the Northwestern District, Chief Gaines also did stints supervising the district’s Command Investigations Unit as well as the Administrative Unit. In 2015 upon his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant, he was assigned to the Western District where he started as a shift commander, and later would become the commanding officer of the Western District’s Operations Unit/District Action Team. Again, understanding the importance of establishing good relations with other police jurisdictions located within the western district geography, Chief Gaines helped to establish regular communications with both students as well as campus police at Coppin State University, for purposes of information sharing pertaining to crime, as well as to help strengthen community/police relations within the community, understanding that many of the students at the university were local residents of Baltimore. In addition, while performing his regular day to day duties with the department, between 2016 and 2017, Chief Gaines spent almost 2 years working as one of the department’s representatives for the education and training program through the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), a national law enforcement organization which partnered with the Baltimore Police Department to offer training and best practices to security corporations and other law enforcement entities abroad, along with assisting in policy reform. Chief Gaines has been an active member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police since 2016, and he is also an active member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. Chief Gaines received numerous commendations over the course of his career for outstanding and meritorious service, for his service during the civil unrest (riots) in April of 2015, and received numerous letters of commendation throughout his 20 plus years with the Baltimore Police Department. As the climate in policing began to change, along with the demand for more police legitimacy, procedural justice and better police/community relations, Chief Gaines was appointed by the Police Commissioner to serve as both Co-Chair and Head Chair on numerous administrative oversight hearings involving incidents such as police misconduct and other violations of departmental policies, guidelines and criminal laws by members of the department. Chief Gaines was appointed to this position by the Commissioner largely due to his reputation for demonstrating a high level of integrity and objectivity, and he continued to serve in that role until retiring at the rank of Major on May 1, 2021. On June 1, 2021 Chief Gaines was hired to be the new Police Chief for the Lansing Community College Police Department in Lansing, Michigan. He has currently been initiating much needed improvements within the department putting a strong focus on such things as ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion is present in all areas of the department, recruitment, data collection, modernizing systems, equipment, policy change, best practices and community-oriented policing, all in preparation of achieving LCC Police Department’s long-term goal of achieving accreditation. Chief Gaines also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from Saint Leo University. Chief Gaines was born in Queens NY, and shortly thereafter, his family moved to a small town in northern New Jersey. Shortly after getting married in July 2000, he and his wife Simone moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Chief Gaines has been married to his wife Simone for 21 years. Simone, who was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Central Michigan University. They currently reside in Michigan with their two daughters, Makayla, a dean’s list student who currently attends The University of Cincinnati, and Marisa, who also attends The University of Cincinnati as a freshman. |