RICHMOND, Va.—The Richmond Police Department is allowing fewer of its cars to be driven home at night, and only a few go as far as King William and Goochland counties and the city of Hopewell. Though a majority still leave the city limits, the number of take-home vehicles assigned to police employees has dropped from 255 to 220 after Chief Bryan T. Norwood tightened the policy this summer, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch review of data on vehicle assignments.

The Charlotte Observer reports that former Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe has passed the North Carolina state exam required for becoming a sworn officer who is allowed to carry a gun and make arrests in that state.

Some Richmond City Council members are thinking twice about sharing oversight of the city auditor in light of his revelation that the city violated purchasing rules on a nearly $1 million contract to buy police cars. The auditor currently serves at the pleasure of the council. But under draft recommendations of the Richmond City Charter Review Commission, he would be appointed by the mayor subject to the approval of the majority of council.

Rodney Monroe, now police chief in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., held a valid certification to be a Virginia law-enforcement officer while he was Richmond’s chief of police, state officials confirmed. News broke this week that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had reassigned a police captain after he said he was preparing a study guide to help Monroe pass a state certification test there.

Information act used in Monroe case T-D got information from city police department in reporting diploma issue It was no secret that he took only two courses at Virginia Commonwealth University. Rodney Monroe, then Richmond’s police chief, publicly spoke of that shortly before he graduated in 2007. But far less apparent were how lapses in judgment and university procedures combined to allow him to get that diploma even though he fell far short of requirements for his bachelor’s degree.

Willie B. Fuller became Virginia Commonwealth University’s police chief with a bachelor’s degree of questionable quality.

Virginia Commonwealth University will set up a confidential help line to make it easier for a whistle-blower to stop an ethics violation such as the one that led to the improper awarding of a bachelor’s degree to a former Richmond police chief. The tip line will be set up next month by an outside vendor to ensure confidentiality, VCU faculty and staff members were told yesterday at a campus forum on ethics.

The commission that accredits Virginia Commonwealth University said yesterday that it is satisfied with the way the university handled the Rodney Monroe degree case. “We’re finished with it,“ said Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The commission decided VCU “had taken adequate steps to ensure that this was indeed a one-time phenomenon,“ Wheelan said. The commission will require no follow-up action by VCU.

The agency that accredits Virginia Commonwealth University is satisfied with the way the university handled the Rodney Monroe degree case, the president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools said today. The commission decided VCU “had taken adequate steps to ensure that this was indeed a one-time phenomenon,“ said Belle S. Wheelan, who heads the accrediting commission for the 11-state Southern region.

With the simple addition of the words “for cause,“ Virginia Commonwealth University yesterday revised its policies to make it easier to revoke a degree.

The chairman of the state House Appropriations Committee has stepped up pressure on Virginia Commonwealth University to hold former Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe accountable for the degree he received improperly. In a letter to VCU Rector Thomas Rosenthal, Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, spelled out three options for Monroe, now police chief of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County, N.C.