VCU news

By Mike Porter

Capt. Tina Buck has seen many colleagues come and go during her long career with the Virginia Commonwealth University police force.

On April 24, she will join them. Buck’s retirement ends a 25-year career with the force.

“I’m old school,” Buck joked during a recent interview in her office. “And the time has come for me to turn over the reins to a newer generation.”

Buck, 53, said her age and length of service were the driving forces behind her decision to end her lengthy career on the university police force. But she won’t stay retired for long.

“I’m young enough to start another career,” she said.

It took some time to figure out what her second career would become. At first, Buck considered becoming a personal trainer. After all, she has been a lifelong weight lifter, is trained in Greco-Roman wrestling and has even boxed professionally. But something didn’t seem right.

“I’ve been telling myself I was going to be a personal trainer but every time I looked into it, it seemed the doors just kept closing,” she said.

But when a Henrico County woman was shot to death by her ex-boyfriend last December, following months of reported stalking incidents, Buck found a new calling.

“It dawned on me that I can start my own business and offer threat assessment to victims of domestic violence,” She said.

Buck’s company will provide free assistance to domestic-violence victims and paid consulting to private companies and government agencies. She even has a name for her new venture, “Guardian Angel Protection.”

Buck will counsel clients about personal safety, discussing issues such as home security and firearms training. For companies, she’ll provide programs about domestic and workplace violence.

The veteran law-enforcement officer also has decided to write a book about stalking and domestic violence that she’ll co-author with former Richmond Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Diane Abato. She’s also hoping to produce domestic violence and stalking prevention training videos for universities.

Buck’s longtime interest in domestic-violence prevention grew after she developed VCU’s first victim witness program in 1992. The program helped prepare crime victims and witnesses for court and supported them through the legal process.

Buck credits her superiors on the force for enabling her domestic violence prevention work to flourish over the years.

“Both current Chief Willie Fuller and former Chief Dan Dean have been great about letting me make presentations about stalking and domestic violence,” she said.

“They gave me the time off to do this, and I’ve become a nationally recognized expert on these topics as a result,” Buck said. “It wouldn’t have been possible without their support.”

Buck considers the proudest accomplishment of her career to be the establishment of a university workplace violence policy.

“Cindy Andrews (VCU’s executive director of human resources) and I spent six years of hard work to put it all together,” she said.

She says university administrators also have been supportive, especially President Eugene P. Trani.

“When Dr. Trani came, he made it a point to meet with the patrol officers and I just knew he was going to be great,” she said. “He loves the police department because he knows what we do. Safety and security are priorities in his administration.”

Buck says she’ll actually miss all the middle-of-the-night phone calls that regularly disrupted her sleep. But she’ll miss her colleagues on the force most of all.

“These are men and women who worked beside of me and made me look good,” she said. “We are like a family and I’m going to miss them.”