Lakeville Police Officers Possess a Wide Range of Skills

Police investigators often need to possess a wide range of skills to successfully investigate the variety of crimes that occur today. In addition to the skills that you would commonly expect police detectives to possess such as strong analytical and interviewing capabilities, detectives need to develop very specific areas of knowledge to be successful. Knowledge in computer forensics and crime specific investigation skills to investigate crimes such as arson are examples of just two areas of special skill sets of successful police investigations teams.

In our department, Detective Russ Helmueller has been attending training sessions over the past year specifically in the area of computer forensics. In addition, we are assembling a forensic computer lab that will be capable of extracting criminal information from computers, cell phones, and other digital storage devices. Almost every complex crime that we investigate has some aspect that will involve digital information devices. The ability to extract that information based on Detective Helmueller’s skills and this equipment will greatly enhance all of our detectives’ effectiveness in investigating these crimes.

Another area of criminal investigations that is very specific is arson investigations. Detective Dave Watson and LFD Fire Marshall Brian Carstensen were recently awarded Fire Investigator Certificates by the Minnesota Fire Service Certification Board. In a unique, but very effective approach to fire investigations, we created a police/fire team approach with the Lakeville Fire Department in our investigation of arson cases.

To obtain certified fire investigator status, Detective Watson and Fire Marshall Carstensen had to successfully pass a three hour written exam and a day long practical fire investigation exercise in which they collected evidence and interviewed witnesses and successfully determined the cause and origin of the fire. Less than two percent of the certified fire investigators in the State of Minnesota are police officers. These are just two examples of the areas of special skills that our investigators have obtained to improve service to our citizens.

Weekly LPD Snapshot

Sampling of activity for the week of February 15 to February 22, 2012

Traffic crashes 14, Alarms 21, Animal Calls 29, Medical Emergency Calls 25, Thefts 15, Traffic Stops 359

Winter Policing

Even during a mild winter such as this one, we have periodic snowfall events resulting in just a few inches of snow that can lead to multiple minor crashes and accidents across our roadway system. As the snow fell this past Monday night, Sergeant Klehr reported that his patrol team responded to several minor crashes including one crash involving damage to a community mailbox on the roadside.

Officer Jessica Swaner responded to the report of a crash involving a single vehicle, sliding off the roadside into a large community mailbox. When Officer Swaner arrived she found that the driver of the crashed vehicle was uninjured and the vehicle had only sustained minor damage, but the entire mailbox structure was knocked over. Officer Swaner took the report on the crash and requested that the Post Office be notified on the damage and went on to the next call.

Birds of a Feather...

Officers Nic Stevens and Josh Berkebile ran a registration check on a car and found that the registration on the vehicle was expired and the registered owner had a felony arrest warrant. The officers confirmed the warrant and stopped the vehicle and arrested the driver on the warrant. They also found that the passenger in the car had three active arrest warrants out for her. Sergeant Knutson, in noting the multiple arrests from the traffic stop in his daily report said, “I guess birds of a feather, do flock together.”

Dumb Criminal of the Week

Officer Thor Howe stopped a vehicle for minor driving violations and noticed when he spoke with the driver that she exhibited signs of possible intoxication. Officer Howe had the driver perform a field sobriety test and the driver submitted to a preliminary breath test, which revealed that the driver was more than twice the legal level for intoxication. Officer Howe arrested and jailed the driver, pending formal second degree DUI charges.

The subject’s vehicle was towed and impounded. The time of the arrest: 3:20 in the afternoon.