FBI commends two township cops for their work
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Two township police officers were recently recognized by the FBI for their efforts in catching some underage thieves.
Recognition of township police Detective Sgt. Joseph Campbell and Detective Daniel Kienle occurred at the township commissioners meeting on Monday, Dec. 2.
James Christie, supervisor senior resident FBI agent and Joseph Bushner, assistant special FBI agent, both from the Philadelphia office, were on hand to hand out the commendations for work by the local police.
According to Police Chief Michael Foltz, the commendations came about as the result of police investigation of break-ins of unlocked vehicles in Lower Pottsgrove and Limerick townships.
“One of those cars contained government property,” said Foltz who demurred when asked what the property was. “I can’t say,” was all he would say.
In any case, Campbell and Kienle canvassed the areas where the break-ins occurred and obtained security video from several private residences.
Images from the video were matched and shared on social media “and a suspect was identified. That snowballed into several suspects,” said Foltz.
Within 24 hours of the first suspect being identified, all of the suspects had been apprehended and the “government property” recovered.
All but one of the suspects was underage, said Foltz.
Bushner said he was at the FBI office in Fort Washington for seven years in charge of Montgomery and Bucks counties and had several interactions with Foltz and the Lower Pottsgrove Police.
“We enjoy a really good relationship with your police department and a lot of it is because of Chief Foltz,” he said.
“We told them we’ve had a situation here with government property. They quickly scrambled the troops, got out there, found the people, interviewed them and the same day got a search warrant and the next thing, the property was recovered, so it was really a boon to us,” Bushner said.
Later in the evening, all five of the township commissioners praised the police department and thanked them for their good work.
“We enjoy a really good relationship with your police department and a lot of it is because of Chief Foltz.”
— Joseph Bushner, assistant special FBI agent
This article first appeared as a post in The Digital Notebook blog.