CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As Charlottesville officials consider what can be done locally to address federal agents wearing masks to shield their identity while carrying out their duties, the city’s top cop said his officers won’t be covering their faces.

“We don’t wear masks,” CPD police chief Michael Kochis told Cville Right Now. “I guess we could, but why would we? … The community gets to know and see who their police officers are who are serving them.”

City Manager Sam Sanders said there are no city ordinances that would stop CPD officers from wearing masks and that the decision, ultimately, rests with Kochis. Sanders said he agrees with the chief’s policy.

“Masking is not something that we see as helpful,” Sanders told Cville Right Now. “People are just hiding who they are.”

Kochis, a New Jersey native who worked in northern Virginia before taking over the CPD in 2023, said he understands why federal immigration agents, who fear doxxing, threats and harassment, choose to hide their faces behind masks.

But he said those issues are, unfortunately, a hazard of the job.

“I get the argument that people are getting threatened and there’s people getting doxed. And I understand that,” Kochis said. “But threats? We call that Tuesday. People threaten police officers every day. It’s not right. And it’s not good. And people should be held accountable for it but wearing masks is not something that we do.”

Charlottesville’s City Council is working on a resolution regarding ICE and the two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

But while some citizens have urged the city to address ICE and Border Patrol agents wearing masks while carrying out their duties, City Councilor Lloyd Snook said there are limitations on what the city can do.

“Some of the aspects of the resolutions call for us to for example to try to ban ICE agents from going around and wearing masks. We don’t really have the authority to tell the federal government how the federal government agents do their job in the city of Charlottesville,” Snook told WINA Morning News. “So, some of those things are a little bit more than we might be ablet o do. Now we can certainly say that certainly Charlottesville officers will also be unmasked and will always be wearing vests of authority.”

Sanders said the city does not want to create conflict between its officers and ICE or Border Patrol agents working in the city.

“We’re trying to also make sure that we’re not putting our own law enforcement professionals in a place of there being challenges with the federal government,” Sanders said. “(It) has certain privileges that we don’t have oversight of and we’ve just got to balance that.”

In the county, there is similarly no ordinance preventing officers from wearing masks, but they don’t do so outside of specific situations, such as when coming into contact with someone believed to have a communicable disease. Like in the city, the decision ultimately rests with the chief, Col. Sean Reeves.

“We do not have a policy specifically for officers wearing masks, but we do have a uniform policy that states officers ‘may not wear any uniform item, accessory, or attachment unless specifically authorized by the Chief of Police or the authorized designee,'” an ACPD spokesperson told Cville Right Now.