Member Directory

Richard Biehl

Biographical Info Chief Richard S. Biehl joined the Dayton Police Department as Director and Chief in January of 2008 after serving as Executive Director of Cincinnati's Community Police Partnering Center. He has more than 40 years of experience in law enforcement work.

Email Address [email protected]

Level Diplomate

Biography Richard Biehl is the former Director and Chief of Police of the Dayton Police Department. He was appointed to this position by City Manager Rashad Young on January 28th, 2008, and retired on July 30, 2021, after spending 13+ years as Chief of Police and nearly 43 years in public and community service. Chief Biehl served 24+ years as a Cincinnati Police Officer and for the last six years of his Cincinnati career as an Assistant Police Chief. He commanded both the Investigations Bureau and the Administration Bureau. His principle areas of responsibility included Internal Investigations, Planning & Special Projects, Youth Services, Criminal Investigation, General Vice Control, and Intelligence. In February 2004, he was appointed as the first Executive Director of the Community Police Partnering Center, a private nonprofit organization. Created in the aftermath of the civil unrest of 2001, the Partnering Center was established to work in partnership with the Cincinnati Police Department to train community stakeholders in problem solving methodologies to address community crime and disorder problems. In addition to leading many neighborhood crime reduction initiatives, in 2006 while Executive Director, Richard Biehl led the implementation of CeaseFire Cincinnati, a neighborhood gun violence reduction initiative using a public health approach for violence reduction modeled after CeaseFire Chicago and which led to reduced violence in the Avondale community. As Police Chief for the Dayton Police Department, Chief Biehl partnered with the Trotwood Police Department and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in 2008 to support community engagement in the Community Initiative to Reduce Gun Violence (CIRGV), a gun violence reduction initiative modeled after the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, which resulted in reduction of group-related homicides in Dayton and surrounding communities. Under his leadership, the Dayton Police Department received the following professional recognition: • Finalist for the 2010, 2011, & 2015 Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem Oriented Policing, • Recipient of the 2011 Ohio Crime Prevention Association’s Special Project Award, • Recipient of the International Association Chiefs of Police Cisco Community Policing Award, 2011 and 2015, • Chief Biehl was the 2011 recipient of the OACP (Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police) Chief Michael Kelly Excellence and Innovation in Policing Award and also the recipient of the 2014 Dayton Convention & Visitors Bureau Ambassadors Award for bringing the International Problem Oriented Policing Conference to Dayton in October 2013. • In September 2019, President Trump awarded the Department of Justice Medal of Valor to Honored were Sgt. William Chad Knight and officers Brian Rolfes, Jeremy Campbell, Vincent Carter, Ryan Nabel and David Denlinger. • In October 2019 at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, President Donald Trump asked Chief Biehl and Assistant Chief Matt Carper to join him on stage in recognition of the brave acts of the six members of the Dayton Police Department that responded quickly and decisively to the Oregon District mass shooting ending the assault in 32 seconds. Chief Biehl was a former competitive powerlifter and martial artist and his athletic pursuits included regional, national, and international sporting events spanning 1976 to 1992. Nearly 30 years ago, Chief Biehl began to practice yoga as a means to emerge from two years of chronic depression. In 2015, Chief Biehl authored the chapter, Trauma in the Theater of the Body, that was published in the book, Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformation through Dance, Yoga, and Touch (2015), and which discusses the potential of yoga to mitigate and heal trauma. In 2020, Chief Biehl completed a Master’s Degree in Mindfulness Studies at Leslie University. He has presented an introduction to mindfulness practice to several conferences and local workshops. He incorporates mindfulness within this yoga teaching.