Virginia Tech Police Department promotes two officers

7 Aug 2012

Sgt. Katie Biniek and Sgt. Derek Hutchison

Two officers with the Virginia Tech Police Department were recently promoted from the rank of corporal to sergeant.

Katie Biniek of Dublin, Va., has been with the department since graduating from the university in 2008. Derek Hutchison of Blacksburg, Va., joined the force in 2009 after serving in the Montgomery and Pulaski County Sheriff’s Offices.

Biniek earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Her course work included subjects such as crime and deviance, juvenile delinquency, drugs and society, and criminology. She was an intern with the police department during her junior year and is a graduate of the department’s Student’s Police Academy. Biniek is certified as a field training officer, rape aggression defense instructor, and crisis interventionist. Currently, she is enrolled as a master’s student in the Center for Public Administration and Policy in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.

Hutchison has spent the last two years supervising the department’s security division. He holds a number of advanced certifications, including firearms instructor, assistant range master, general instructor, driving instructor, lead officer, mobile command operator, and dignitary protection team member. He also serves as a campus security officer liaison and instructor with the Department of Criminal Justice Services.

The nationally accredited Virginia Tech Police Department strives to enhance the safety and quality of life for students, faculty, staff, and visitors through effective law enforcement and proactive crime prevention in partnership with the university community. The department has been serving Virginia Tech since 1945.

Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.