June 2024 Newsletter (Volume 10, Issue 6) (2024)

June 2024 Newsletter (Volume 10, Issue 6)

Please click on the title below to view each of the different stories in the newsletter.

Heroes United

As we gear up for another exciting summer, we are announcing the kickoff of the newly renamed and reimagined "Heroes United" Blood Donation Challenge! This initiative, formerly the “Battle of the Badges”, aims to celebrate the spirit of unity and community support embodied by our first responders.

Instead of pitting first responder teams against each other in a head-to-head competition, we are rallying together towards a collective goal: reaching 400 donations. This ambitious target surpasses last year's total by approximately 25 donors, a testament to the growing impact of our community's generosity and the mutual respect our local first responder teams have for one another.

The Heroes United challenge will run from May 27 – September. Upcoming blood drives hosted by first responder teams will be on the following dates:

RPD: June 4th & 5th
Ambulance Services: August 27th
RPD: August 28th & 29th

We are confident that with your continued partnership and dedication, the Heroes United Blood Donation Challenge will once again make a significant impact in 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and commitment to ensuring a stable blood supply for those in need.

Making Connections Early: Have you heard about CTECH (Rochester Career and Technical Education)

Captain Jonathan Jacobson

If you follow the news, there is no doubt that recruiting people into the criminal justice field nationwide is at crisis levels. The number of law enforcement professionals in the State of Minnesota that are getting ready to retire is staggering, with 2500 officers expected to retire within the next 3-5 years. To put it in perspective, that’s about 25% of officers in the state. A typical career spans 25-30, or more, years. The current rate of retirements is already exceeding the current rate of replacement, so the forthcoming retirement picture can look rather gloomy. Replacement means not only hiring candidates, but those same candidates successfully making it through their academy and field training and being certified for solo-patrol duty. Although student numbers entering fields in criminal justice are on the rise, we are far below what those numbers looked like in the 1990s and still well below what those numbers looked like in 2019. What is the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office doing to assist in recruiting for our own replacements?

The list of things we do is quite lengthy. To name a few, we continue to provide our current staff with exceptional equipment and training, staying ahead of the curve in implementing programs and making sure our staff have the most up-to-date information. The Deputy Sheriffs Association and Sheriff’s Office Administration has worked hard to keep wages competitive, which always helps. Our mental health and wellness resources are vast, from check-ins with a licensed psychologist, chaplains, peer support team to fitness and dietician programming and other online resources. These things above certainly help retain our people, but our current staff can be our best recruiters by highlighting all the things they enjoy most about our office. Recruiting is everyone’s responsibility; even our readers that may not be in this line of work but support what we do. By showing your support, you just may encourage someone to explore this career.

That someone may be a student in middle or high school. There has been plenty of research in the realm of recruiting, and experts have agreed that recruiting students before they enter college is far more successful than waiting for the job fairs when students are graduating with their degrees. What is imperative is understanding the concept of recruiting has shifted to include developing a relationship with the young people that are already in our communities. Most law enforcement professionals working today are serving in communities in which they grew up or have other significant ties. Many that start working in law enforcement for other communities often will transfer back to the city or county they are from. Recognizing this and acknowledging recent research, we wanted to start a program that engaged students interested in criminal justice while developing a longer-term relationship with them to support them in exploring their interests.

We are currently in our second year of coordinating an introduction to criminal justice course through Rochester Public Schools and their CTECH (Rochester Career and Technical Education Center) program. This course is certainly unique. Our academic programming is led by a teacher many of our readers might remember from Mayo High School; Jeff Lunde. Jeff’s job is to provide the academic guardrails for both students and instructors. Our job is coordinating guest experts to speak nearly every day of the semester-long course. We have partnered with Rochester Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol, Olmsted County Attorney’s Office, and Olmsted County Corrections/Probation and each of our organizations have committed staff to teach students for several weeks each semester. Our guest experts touch on the textbook material and then impart their knowledge to our students regarding their experiences in this field. Sometimes it’s case studies of actual crimes or major events in our community or our nation, to sharing life experiences that have shaped us as professionals in relation to the course material. Some days are filled with practical training like crime scene processing and crash reconstruction. Others are filled with special topics such as our Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement (DECO) Team, the MN Department of Natural Resources, or Implicit Bias and cultural diversity training. If that’s not enough to get excited about, this course is also articulated; meaning students that successfully pass the course will get college credit at several MNSCU colleges.

Having prolonged exposure to a core group of students who are expressing interest in criminal justice allows us to develop a unique relationship with them. Our guest experts get to let them know so many positive things about their organizations and how we are unique, yet how we partner with each other. Some of our first-year students have graduated and entered college seeking a criminal justice degree. Some are hoping to be defense or prosecuting attorneys. Some want to be forensic social workers and work with law enforcement to help resolve someone’s mental health crisis or find more long-term solutions. Our second-year students (pictured) are just as diverse in interest as our first-year students. Some of our guest experts maintain regular contact with the students who are continuing to pursue their careers, being there for them not only as a recruiter for their agency but, more importantly, a partner and mentor to guide them on their journey. It doesn’t much matter who the student ends up working for as if they end up working in the criminal justice system and in their own community, we have accomplished our primary mission. But something that might be even more profound is the unique experience of the student that does not end up choosing a career in criminal justice; they will be better citizens having a diversified understanding of the intricacies of it.

Our first two years have been small groups (15-20 students). This upcoming 2024-2025 school year will be the first time that students can ask previous CTECH criminal justice students what they thought about the class before they register. So far, registration numbers are above 50, which is the largest group of students that have registered yet! We are certainly hoping that after student schedule deconfliction those numbers will remain high enough to fill our 32-seat classroom. The reality of this major undertaking was not possible without the help and partnership of so many people. I would like to extend an enormous thank you to Mr. Lunde for his dedication to his students and helping develop this articulated course. But even more so for being able to connect the guest expert presentations with the academic material in a way that engages both his students and presenters. A special thank you to many more; to Brandon Macrafic for helping spearhead the partnership with CTECH and RPS and our Sheriff’s Office. To Heather Wilman and Heather Hogan with Rochester Public Schools for making this joint venture possible and helping with articulation. To Randy Mohawk (retired Rochester Police and current academic program leader at RCTC) for sharing his professional course work at RCTC so that articulation could be accomplished. And to all our local criminal justice partners in this joint venture, our gratitude for your continued dedication to making this course come to life each year and making connections early in the lives of our student.

Rick Broadwater is Retiring from the ADC

Captain Macey Tesmer

Rick Broadwater started his Olmsted County career in 1998 working at the Juvenile Detention Center. In 2003 Rick joined the ADC team and was an FTO in no time. January of 2005 Rick was assigned to be one of three Sentence to Serve (STS) crew leaders.

For the past 19 years Rick has worked with detainees on the STS crew, teaching them job skills that they can use when they return to the community. Rick has put countless hours into working with non-profit organizations and the Olmsted County Parks Department to make our community a great place to live.

When Rick was asked what some of his favorite jobs/projects were over the years he had this to say. He enjoyed working at Oxbow and Chester Woods, especially working on the trails. He enjoyed working with the staff at both parks as well. Rick also enjoyed setting up the county fair every year. In all Rick said he enjoyed learning new things all the time in his role as an STS crew leader. Finally, he said he had a big network of people he worked with over the years, and he will miss them all.

Congratulations on your retirement Rick. Enjoy the next chapter in your life!

Monthly Snapshot:Drone Deployments

Mike Burton, Radio Communications Specialist

Drones are becoming an integral tool for law enforcement today. With such a wide range of uses from aerial searches to pinpointing evidence and continued technological developments, the use of drones by the Sheriff’s Office is ever-increasing. Here’s a peek at our recent drone usage:

2022:

5 Deployments
- 1 Suspect Search
- 4 Motor Vehicles Accidents
  - 1 Fatal Crash

2023:

12 Deployments
- 4 Motor Vehicle Crashes
  - 1 Fatal Crash
- 1 Civil Search
- 1 Death Scene Investigation
- 3 Suspect Searches
- 2 Missing Person searches
- 1 Structure Fire Investigation

2024 (As of 5/28/2024):

4 Deployments
- 3 Motor Vehicle Crashes
  - 3 Fatal Crashes
- 1 Suspect Search

Dates of Interest

June 3

Senior Administration

Sheriff
Kevin Torgerson

Chief Deputy - LEC
James Schueller

Captains
Jon Jacobson
Kelly Lee
Ryan Mangan
Tim Parkin
Chris Wallace

Executive Assistant
Laura Collins

Director - ADC
Samantha Reps

Captains
David Adams
Andy Danielson
Macey Tesmer