Dan Carlson, Former Eden Prairie Police Chief

I woke early today and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Only 3 days left as Chief, the end of a 25 year career with the EPPD. I am seldom a man of few words, but today it just seems right.I give you today, a simple thank you. It has been an honor and a privilege to be a member of the EPPD, to be part of the mission: To Protect and Serve.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Note: For those of you who would like to know what my future plans look like, feel free to visit www.publicsafetyministries.org

This one is for every cop, firefighter and paramedic that spends their day doing their job, day after day after day and wondering what difference it makes. I got this through my weblog feedback and I can’t think of a better story to receive and share in my final days on the job.

Christmas Thanks! — Dan Carlson weblog contact form

My name is ………….. I am writing this email wanting to
give thanks to Officer Dennis Paulson, If he is still with your department.
The other day I was asked to give thanks for all the good things I have and
for the people that made it possible. My thanks was for Officer Paulson and
all who saved me from an abusive home. This was 21 years ago, I was about 9
years old..Officer Paulson was very kind to my brother and I, as was all of
the other officers in your department the day they removed us from my
parents. As I looked at my daughter the other night in front of the
Christmas tree (whom is now 9) I realized if it hadn’t been for that day I
would not be here. So I would just like to say thanks to officer Paulson,
if he is still there and to all who made sure I was safe. Thank You and
Merry Christmas!

And yes Dennis Paulson still works here. He is a Sergeant now and I’ll make sure he gets the message!

I was considering making a Thanksgiving post today, just a general holiday greeting. As I checked my e-mails this morning I was greeted with the following letter. So instead, I say thank you for this wonderful Thanksgiving Day gift. And a very special thanks to all who protect and serve and spend their days (even holidays when the rest of us are home with our families) carrying out their duties professionally, compassionately and with kindness.

Last week, an Eden Prairie Officer came to our family’s rescue. In the early afternoon, my son-in-law, was observed by one of your Officers staggering along the road, crying. He has battled severe depression for years and we have been to countless doctors and placed him in many facilities. He had had a reaction to his medication over the weekend and couldn’t stand the depression any longer. He managed to make it on foot to the liquor store. He thought he could just drown the depression with booze. Your Officer took the time to call his wife, and they made arrangements to transport him to the hospital. I work in the Emergency Room and I was here when the Officer came in with him. This Officer could have made our day a nightmare but instead, he was my hero. He stayed just long enough to ask if he could help in any other way. I thanked him for bringing our son-in-law to the hospital and he left. I know good people join the Police department to help people and try and make a difference. Very seldom do they get the thanks they deserve. There aren’t any words to convey the thanks I have for this Officer. I don’t even know his name. Could you please find him and let him know that we appreciate what he did for us and that our son-in-law is OK. We were able to get him into another hospital today. He will miss Thanksgiving with his wife and children but at least he is safe. So, whoever this thank you belongs to, God Bless you Sir and keep safe.

Our Thanks.

(Note: The above letter was slightly edited removing names and other identifiers)

I write today with mixed emotions. I have the day off, Veterans Day, and I’m posting this from home. Yesterday was the EPPD annual all department meeting. My last one as the chief. We invite the entire department, sworn, civilian, our professional volunteers and various others in the community and city close to our department. We also invite department alumni. It has been come a tradition, 2 years now, that I hope continues. As I wind down my career I look for ways to keep in touch and I hope the tradition continues so next year at this time I’ll have an excuse to drop by.

This year, among other discussions we unveiled the new Police Department History (click to view) page on the cities website. I think it was the highlight of the meeting. We now have a platform to document the living history that was present at the meeting. Five of the original six EPPD officers were here yesterday. Deputy Chief Rob Reynolds, soon to be Chief Reynolds gave some nice words about the value of our history and capturing and documenting it. I presented the info but he’s been driving the project.

I’ve got the mixed emotions because I’m not gone yet, but the end is in sight and most everything I do lately, I’m doing it for the last time. I’ve got about six more weeks of regular work, but most of my internal responsibilities have been transitioned to Rob. Now I need to close out some of my regional chief responsibilities such as my board positions with The Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, The Hennepin County Chiefs of Police Association and a couple of other oversight boards I sit on. Then its a little vacation time around the holidays and a week or so back at the office to close out my files and clean out the office.

I’ve received lots of questions about what I’ll be doing after I retire. If you are curious you can get most of the story at: www.publicsafetyministries.org

I plan to keep posting now and then until I hand over the reigns in about six weeks. So keep visiting and I’ll keep you posted.

Last night I had the opportunity to say a few (yes just a few) words at the 2006 Citizen Academy graduation dinner. It was a great event hosted by Sgt. Dennis Paulson who coordinated the academy and dinner event. My administrative assistant Tracey Schowalter did an outstanding job handling many of the logistics of the academy.

The Citizen Academy provides the opportunity for community members to get an inside look at our police operations and our staff. It is a six week program that provides a hands on learning experience and helps us build strong community relationships.

My favorite part of the graduation is when the students get up and share a few words about their experiences. It is just a great reminder to me of what a great organization we have and what terrific community support and trust we have. Lauren Weaver, the president of the Eden Prairie Crime Prevention Fund, the group that funds our citizen academies, also shared some nice thoughts.

Thanks to all who participated in another successful academy!

(The following is a Saturday morning, drinking my coffee, reading the paper, watching the news, needed to write it down reflection)

Politics. Hmmmmm….republican, democrat, green, liberal, conservative, moderate, left, right, independent, fiscal, social, extreme, partisan, bipartisan, blue, red, hmmmmmmm.

You can’t sit in front of a TV without being blasted with political ads. And you can’t watch the news without seeing reports on the accuracy/inaccuracies of those ads. We are pushed to choose, take a side, for what do we stand, what do we believe?

What is the political identity of a police department? Should there be a political identity to a police department? What is the political identity of a police chief? Should there be one? All very interesting questions…..and the answers…..oh so dangerous.

Well, I’m here to make a statement. I’m going to give you my label. Here is my political identity that you can stick on me through out the coming elections. This is where my loyalties are. As the Eden Prairie Police Chief …… I ……. am. ……. a …….. Dependent!

I am dependent on an idea, and on those that have been called to carry it out. That idea is wrapped into a very simple mission statement…….To Protect and Serve and to even bring more simplicity…….To Protect. You see, many are called to serve in this world, but few are called to protect. It is a unique calling to public safety and military professions, and those that answer the call, that make it their life are even more unique. The EPPD is made up of close to 140 people that have answered that call, that have given themselves to protect in the many different ways. If you add fire department and EMS personnel the numbers go up around 300. 300 people who have dedicated their lives to protecting life, property, freedom, and all of those wonderful ideas our nation is based on. 300 people protecting the 65,000 who live here and the countless others who visit and pass through.

So when it comes up, politically where does the soon to be retired Eden Prairie Police Chief stand? He stands Dependent. Dependent on an idea and those who have committed their lives to carrying it out.

Our EPPD Reserve Unit was presented with The Minnesota Police Reserve Officer Association’s “Spotlight Award”. The award was presented to the unit at their monthly training meeting on Tuesday night. The award recognizes the quality police reserve units around the state

.

 

Here is Todd Schmeltzer, President of the MPROA presenting the award to Reserve Unit Supervisor Jim Burkhardt, Deputy Supervisor Loren Moriearity and Squad Leaders Steve Mueller and Brett McMahon.

A Benefit of the Chief Job, receiving awards on behalf of the quality work of quality staff.

If you want more information on our Reserve Unit, or to see the spotlight award of the MPROA, click back there.

 

In this day and age of complicated issues in policing, quality training and quality instructors are crucial components of high quality police service. It is also critical that successful training programs and staff be recognized for their efforts in maintaining public trust as a professional police department. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I’d pass on the comments of our training sergeant, David Becker, regarding the recent performance of our training unit:

Over the past few months, the instructors of the training unit have created and instructed training that deserves additional recognition. The cutting edge classes that were taught (”Patrol Response to Terrorism Events”, the “Bus Tactics and Issues”, and the “Traffic Stops with Violent Encounters”) not only reviewed basic tactical concepts but also introduced new ideas and ways of looking at how we respond to tactical events. Officers were challenged and pushed outside their “normal” tactical comfort zone. As one officer put it, “They (the instructors) really got in my head”.

I would also like to state that the preparation for the training that was presented also took a lot of time, thought, and hard work by the instructors. The instructors were flexible with their hours and I know they used their own personal time to make sure the training was “top shelf”.

I am very proud of the instructors of the training unit. They do an outstanding job. Please say thank you (again) when you see them.

I am also proud of them, and Sergeant Becker as well, for all they do for our department and our community.

So, Thank you!

As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches you will hear more and more about what is currently happening down there. As I have mentioned before, I was down there doing relief work about a month ago. If you are interested, I wrote a commentary on the subject for the Eden Prairie News last week. Click HERE if you want to check it out.

The Street

Sgt. Randy Thompson just left the building. As I was writing this, I heard his final sign off on the radio. Badge 8 is out of service … kind of.

One of the major benefits of the police profession is the ability to retire at a young age and pursue a second career. Randy is doing just that. Although he isn’t old enough to collect pension money just yet, he has a great opportunity to start a career as a school counselor in the Eden Prairie Schools. He chose to make the leap and start that new second career.

Randy has been a solid fixture with our department in the school liaison program for many years. I doubt there is an EP kid that has gone through the system that hasn’t had some contact with “Officer Randy”. One of the nice things about this transition is that Randy will continue to work for the EPPD as a part time, civilian, Juvenile Diversion Coordinator. He will help us finish the program he created that diverts EP youth from the court system in certain circumstances. Randy will complete the implementation of the program and manage its transition to a new officer.

So good luck Randy, and see you around!

Randy’s Final Words

Receiving his 19 1/2 Years of Service Plaque and photo ops

More photo ops…

And the cake says it all

There is a nice article in the EP Sun Current. Check it out HERE

Once again, last Friday I had the opportunity to participate in the final interview, actually a one on one conversation, with the final four candidates for our open police officer positions. As you are probably aware, Detective Jim Bergstrom recently retired and Sgt. Randy Thompson is retiring this week leaving us with two cop job openings. We are also looking for someone to fill my open position when I retire in a few months.

Well I’m here to tell you we continue to get high quality, highly professional candidates applying for these positions. Of these final four, two are people have been previously employed with our department as non-sworn employees, and two are cops from other metro agencies. We will be fortunate to have any of them work for us. The one thing these candidates have to say about the EPPD is the high level of professionalism we display and that the people here really enjoy working here. Those are nice things for a chief to hear, and I know nice things for a community to hear so I’m passing them along.

On another note…….

Anyone else out there ever take a 74 hour, port to port, trip to Alaska for a weekend white water rafting trip? Well I did this past weekend. I had a free plane ticket, Pete had a free weekend and a couple of his buddies willing to take us on an overnight raft trip down the Nenana River in Denali Park.

Here I am at the beginning of a very wet trip with Pete and our guides, twin brothers Travis and Lance, raised in Snowflake Arizona, now pure Alaskans. These are great guys who I would best describe as a couple of characters with great character. I am glad Pete has them as friends.

And here is a few shots of the trip if you are interested.

Well, I’m back again and hope to maintain a consistent pattern of posts through January when I retire. The title for this post is a line from a Bill Murray movie, can you name it?

It’s been an interesting couple of months since I announced my retirement date. The thought of leaving this place and this profession after the past 25 years is really hard to comprehend when I actually sit down and think about it. Since I last posted two other officers have announced their departures, one has left and the other leaves in a couple of weeks. I find the idea of leaving a career and a lifestyle at middle age very interesting. We spend a lot of time transitioning people into this profession, but don’t provide much help in the transition out. Our Training Sergeant, Dave Becker came up with the idea of putting on a training program designed to assist officers through the retirement transition. It is in the development stages but it looks like it will a great program. Stay tuned for more detail.

In the spirit of my past blogging endeavors, I’ve included a picture of my most recent travel adventure. Below is a picture of our church group (complete with members of EP’s Prairie Lutheran) as we spent a week in New Orleans mucking out houses as part of the disaster relief efforts there. I wrote my EP News commentary on the experience. It will be in next weeks edition if you are interested.

It’s good to be back, I’m shooting for a least an entry a week so we’ll see how that goes.

 

Yes, It has been quite awhile since I last posted a weblog. From the begining my goal was to write about things that “crossed my mind” and things that “crossed my desk” (I borrowed that line from the City Manager). Well, what’s been crossing my mind and my desk lately hasn’t been public until recently.

For those of you that haven’t heard, a couple of weeks ago I announced that I would be retiring in January of 2007 to pursue a future career in the ministry. There were a couple of nice articles in the EP News and the EP Sun Current regarding the announcement, some detail of my future plans and most importantly the name of my successor: Deputy Chief Rob Reynolds. Rob has over 20 years with the EPPD and I couldn’t be happier with the City Manager’s decision to promote him. His qualifications are too numerous to list here, but needless to say, the City and the Department are fortunate to have him as their next chief.

We are currently planning the Police Chief transition that will take place towards the end of the year. We are also transitioning a few responsibilities as they come up if the timing is right. As far as my consistancy in blogging lately, combined with Rob’s enthusiasm towards new opportunities and specifically “podcasts”, the timing of moving blogging responsibilities to Rob seemed right.

Rob is scheduled to be trained in the near future, so stand by for “new and improved” coming soon! In the meantime I’ll still make a post now and then until I retire so don’t delete me from your favorites just yet.

June 14 update: links added to the new weblog of Deputy Chief Rob Reynolds.

This past Saturday Officer Linda Williams, Officer Rob Johnston and Lieutenant Tracy Luke had the opportunity to participate in Special Olympics 2006 Basketball Tournament held at the Eden Prairie High School. There were over 800 participants and the athletes, families, and other supporters had a great time.Thanks to Special Olympics for the wonderful work they do and thanks to Linda, Rob and Tracy for taking the time to get involved.

CLick on the photos below for some great shots of the athletes and their supporters.