Special Agent Gregory Ford became the first civilian director of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, better known by its older acronym CID.
Ford’s ascension to CID director was marked during a Pentagon ceremony Friday morning.
Ford, who has more than 20 years of experience in local and federal law enforcement, is the first civilian special agent serving as director since the establishment of CID as a major command post in 1971.
He served more than 16 years with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and has previously worked on the FBI Terrorism Task Force out of the Washington D.C. field office.
The appointment of a civilian special agent as director comes on the heels of controversy — notably the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee’s inquiry that was prompted by the April 2020 murder of Spc. Vanessa Guillen at the Texas installation.
The 152-page report, released Dec. 8 2020, found that the Fort Hood CID detachment was staffed with overworked and inexperienced agents, leading to mistakes in high-profile investigations like Guillen’s, as well as lesser known criminal cases.
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The official restructuring of CID was announced by the Army in May 2021.
“CID leadership will focus on four complementary lines of effort,” Ford said at the ceremony. “Operational excellence, talent management, modernization, and partnerships.”
“The organization will commit to a culture of multi-tiered internal oversight and continuous assessment,” he added.
The restructuring also increases the ratio of civilian criminal investigators to military special agents. That’s intended to address concerns about inexperience noted in the Fort Hood report, as well as to strengthen Army partnerships with civilian law enforcement agencies.
“Historically,” Ford said, “the organization was viewed as an Army command tasked with law enforcement duties. We must now clearly establish CID as an elite federal law enforcement agency that operates within and in support of the Department of the Army.”
Relinquishing his role as director was Brig. Gen. Duane Miller, who will continue to serve as provost marshal general of the Army and oversee Army Corrections Command.
“Today marks an important change within the Military Police Corps and our Army,” Miller said. “The role that CID plays in the Army’s story is ever evolving. Greg, and his team, have the honor of guiding us through the next phase of its journey.”
Following the change of command ceremony, Miller was promoted to the rank of major general, according to comments made at the ceremony.
Rachel is a Marine Corps veteran and a master's candidate at New York University's Business & Economic Reporting program.
