News Releases

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, July 1, 2015

It was 60 years ago today, on July 1, 1955, that Lieutenant Thomas B. Jacocks joined the Montgomery County Police Department. Lieutenant Jacocks is the longest-serving member of law enforcement at a single agency in the state of Maryland and currently serves as a Deputy Commander of the 2^nd District (Bethesda station).

Jacocks was born in October of 1932, in Washington, D.C. According to family members, Jacocks announced at dinner one evening, when he was six years old, that he was going to be a police officer when he grew up. Jacocks graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase (BCC) High School in 1951 and in the summer of 1952 enlisted in the Army during the Korean War; he was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. In 1954, after his military tour ended, he applied to become a Montgomery County Police Officer. He was sworn in on July 1, 1955, and began his career as a patrol officer in Bethesda. He married his wife, Peggy, and they moved to Kensington where they raised their five children. Jacocks rose through the ranks from Patrol Officer to Detective Private First Class, Detective Corporal, Detective Sergeant, Detective Sergeant First Class, to Lieutenant. He has worked not only in the 2^nd District (Bethesda station), but also in the Juvenile Aid Bureau, the Warrant and Fugitive Bureau the 4th District (Wheaton-Glenmont station), the 3rd District (Silver Spring station), and as the Court Liaison Officer.

Jacocks has also dedicated over 30 years of service to the Maryland Special Olympics program. He is a fundraising leader for the Department’s annual Torch Run that benefits Special Olympics and has attended every Department Torch Run since Maryland’s inception of the program in 1985.

Certainly Jacocks has seen many changes in police work and the county over his 60 years of service. On Jacocks’s first day on the job, he was one of 180 officers serving a population of about 200,000. Today, he serves as one of more than 1,200 officers who serve a population of over 1,000,000 residents. If you’re fortunate to sit down with the soft-spoken Jacocks, the stories that he will tell you from his seasoned perspective about police work are fascinating.

Chief Tom Manger, commenting on this day, said, “Lieutenant Tom Jacocks celebrates 60 years on the job today. My guess is that he will make a couple of traffic stops to and from the office. He still wears the uniform proudly!"

The 82-year-old Lieutenant does not like the spotlight and humbly prefers to take his record in stride without fanfare. Nonetheless, to celebrate his impressive 60 years of service, his fellow police officers and police personnel, family, and friends, will hold a low-key gathering on July 15. It will be held at the Bethesda station, where Jacocks began his career and where he now serves.

Commander Falcinelli of the 2^nd District said, “It is my honor to have Lieutenant Jacocks as a member of my command staff. His dedication to the job today is as strong as it was when he joined the Department in 1955. Sixty years in any profession, let alone law enforcement, is something rarely achieved and I wish him well as he begins his sixty-first year.”

As far as retirement goes, a date has not been set. And, in true Lieutenant Jacocks fashion, he might just come to work one day and quietly retire.

RLI