In his 30 years with the James City County Police Department, Bill Gibbs has investigated all sorts of crimes.
Because of his decades of service, he was awarded 2013 Chairman’s award for contributions and service to James City County. Jim Kennedy, the former chairman of the James City County Board of Supervisors, presented the awards during the Jan. 14 supervisors meeting.
Gibbs specializes in Internet crime and fraud investigations. He is a member of the FBI’s Peninsula Innocent Images Task Force and the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which investigates crimes involving child pornography. He has worked numerous cases involving child predators as well as complicated fraud cases and many other crimes.
He joined the department in 1984 after a stint with the Virginia State Capital police. At the time, he was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard reserves, which brought him to the area. Because he collected police patches, he decided to stop at the James City County Law Enforcement Center — in those days it was located on John Tyler Highway — to see if the department had any patches available.
During that visit, Gibbs spoke with then Police Chief Bob Key for a few hours. Law enforcement duties in James City County had recently transitioned from being under the purview of a sheriff’s department to the new police station. Gibbs was impressed with Key’s enthusiasm, causing him to submit an application to join the force. He was the first person Key hired.
After serving in the uniform patrol division for about three-and-a-half years, Gibbs joined the investigations division. In those days, investigators worked crimes ranging from larcenies to rapes to murders, as there were no specialties for investigators as there are now.
“I decided a long time ago that there are people who are police officers to bring home a paycheck , and there are some who see it as a profession and some for whom it is a calling,” Gibbs said. “I feel like it was a calling for me. I was doing what I was meant to be doing.”
As the investigations division began to feature detectives specialized in various fields, Gibbs, who has always had an interest in computers, began to work crimes involving them. Computer networks exist independently of the lines that separate counties, cities and states, so his work has led him all over the country. For example, he worked as an undercover agent here to build a case against an Orlando man with child pornography on his computer.
He said he manages the stress of his job by “working toward an end that I know is right.”
“We’ve got a poster in the office that says some people see things nobody else should see and other people go places where nobody else dares to go,” Gibbs said. “That kind of sums it up in a nutshell. Kids need protecting from bad guys and against themselves.”
As one of the go-to computer forensics experts in the department, Gibbs said he has seen several cases where children get in trouble with technology.
He said children do not always realize is that once a message containing cyberbullying or sexting is sent, there is no unsend button.
“It’s like pulling the trigger on a gun,” Gibbs said. “There’s no unshoot. Once you pull that trigger it’s gone down range. And you can be guilty of a felony, production, distribution, possession of child pornography.”
He said kids will think they are sending something exclusively to their boyfriend or girlfriend but that those images often end up spreading, sometimes going all over the country.
Gibbs also spends time investigating fraud cases, such as credit card fraud and online attempts to defraud the elderly. Like the cases involving digital sex crimes, the fraud cases Gibbs works often do not stop at a jurisdiction’s borders. He worked a case last year where a James City County woman was being defrauded by someone in the Caribbean. He shared information with a U.S. postal inspector in Florida who had an open case on the suspect. That person was later arrested.
“Bill has been a loyal and dedicated employee of the police department and county for quite some time,” said Maj. Stephen Rubino, the head of the James City County Police Department’s Investigations Division. “He takes great pride in the technical work he does.”
Gibbs also spends time on foot patrols, working what he called a “good old-fashioned cop on the street beat” that is localized in New Town. He said that work, which has him going into shops and interacting with people around the community, is rewarding and that it “goes back to a different time.”
“I think Officer Gibbs has great public relationships,” Kennedy said. “He works well. I’ve seen him at work in New Town. He goes into the shops and talks to the shop keeps. He makes himself very accessible. He’s a very fine person.”
The award comes two years after Gibbs was named Officer of the Year in 2011. Gibbs enjoys participating in World War II re-enactments in his free time. He is usually the commander on the Russian side during the re-enactments as he has a longtime interest in that country. He is also an amateur gunsmith who likes to restore old firearms. He is married and has one son who lives in Richmond.
