The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Officers recognized for excellence
The Painesville Police Department recently recognized seven officers for various forms of service to the department and community.
Chief Dan Waterman presented awards for department excellence, honorable service and administration at the Feb. 6 City Council meeting, while also recognizing the department’s detective bureau with a unit citation. He later noted that all of the awards were either rare or new.
“Some are long overdue, but we tend to keep them very sacred, some of our awards,” he said.
Officer Dallas McCloud was presented with the Department Excellence Award after about six years with the department. Waterman estimated that the award is issued every two or three years.
“The story with Dallas is, he’s the model of what we really look for in an officer,” he said.
“He’s extremely wellrounded. His work ethic in every area is just at the highest level. He never gets complaints, he always investigates extremely thoroughly, residents are always really satisfied.”
Waterman noted that McCloud has also received praise from his colleagues for being “thorough as far as helping out others.” When an important item is stolen from someone, the chief said that he will “put a lot of detail in his email to other officers, to help them, involve them in the case, see if they can help find the item or find the persons who took it.”
“Just very compassionate and very hard working,” he added.
Waterman noted that McCloud has served in traffic, OVI and narcotics enforcement roles, as well as on criminal investigations.
“His enforcement is very strong in all areas,” he said. “Fair but firm.”
Additionally, the chief awarded the new Honorable Service Award to Lt. Mike Slocum, citing his 14 years with the Lake County SWAT team and his work as a lessthan-lethal instructor.
“That’s very important, it’s kind of part of de-escalation and using the lowest level of force necessary to end an incident, rather than the highest, which there’s too many national incidents showing that,” Waterman said.
“I’m sure that has saved us countless major incidents here, and we’re very thankful for that,” he added.
Waterman noted that the award is intended for “probably anyone who serves honorably on the SWAT team for 10 years or more, or someone who served on the SWAT team and was injured in the line of duty, God forbid.”
He also presented Lt. Toby Burgett and Lt. Larry Armstrong with the Chief’s Bar, which he called an “administrative award” and described as “the administrative equivalence of sort of the Medal of Honor.”
The chief later noted that both officers have been involved in “non-stop diligent work” for the past three years.
Burgett received the award for his role as administrative lieutenant. Waterman cited Burgett’s role in a recent police levy, which he described as “the most successful police levy we’ve probably ever had,” as well as his role in implementing the department’s camera system.
“Lt. Burgett is sort of my right-hand person,” Waterman said. “He has served as assistant chief at times when I’m out of the building, and he’s certainly extremely hardworking, every project that comes along.”
Armstrong received the Chief’s Bar for his role as code enforcement supervisor.
“Lt. Armstrong accepted the temporary role as a department head in code enforcement, a position that required Lt. Armstrong to learn an entirely different body of law from criminal
law,” Waterman said. “He not only had to do that, he had to do that on the fly while trying to get that organization together.”
The chief noted that Armstrong helped digitize the city’s code enforcement system.
He also commended Armstrong for his focus on code compliance, noting that he and a partner “would call people and gain compliance simply by talking things out, rather than to have to go and cite.”
“He took the community policing philosophy that we use in the police department, and he transferred that over to code enforcement, and I think that philosophy has helped,” Waterman added. “Again, instead of just being all about enforcement and issuing citations, we try to gain compliance. It helps clean up the city quicker, and with less hassle and less expense for court costs.”
In addition to the individual awards, Waterman also presented a unit citation
to the department’s Detective Bureau. He cited their “extraordinary acts of investigation and skill” and “very high rate of conviction for our homicides.”
The chief noted that this conviction rate is intended to deter homicide and provide “whatever element of justice and closure you can to the families.”
“They’re not one of the larger detective bureaus in the county,” Waterman said. “They’re one of the smaller, and yet their workload is among the largest, so very proud of them.”
He noted that this was the firm time that the department has issued a unit citation.
“It’s rare that everyone really is just absolutely, wholeheartedly involved in something like that,” Waterman said. “Normally, you would give something to denote the individual’s effort. In this case, we weren’t able to really decipher anyone’s greater effort. They really all just really went after it for the last couple years.”
The bureau is led by Armstrong and also includes Detectives Donald Ticel, William Smith and Vince Crews, he noted.
Waterman described the award presentations as a “happy night.”
“The officers, having talked to them afterwards, them and their families, they were very proud to receive it,” he said. “It’s just a small token of appreciation for the work they do for our community.”
City Manager Doug Lewis commended the department at the end of the council meeting.
“I’ve worked a lot of places,” he said.
“We have one of the better police departments that I’ve ever worked with. They do solve a lot of major crimes. They are out there, and just wanted to thank the police department for all their hard work.”