Sean C. Morgan
In an attempt to solve more crimes and decrease the burden on its patrol officers, Sweet Home Police Department has filled its second detective position with an officer who grew up in the community.
Keenon Martin went to work as a detective on Aug. 19, the first time the department has had a second detective in more than a decade.
Martin, who grew up in Sweet Home, joined SHPD a little more than three years ago.
“He really put himself in a position,” said Police Chief Jeff Lynn. “We had other good applicants. He has done a really good job setting himself up for success with the training he’s taken.”
Martin has and continues to train in child and sex abuse cases, Lynn said.
“Out of everything we do here, investigation is what really piques my interest,” Martin said, so he applied for the position. “We all have our own interests, strengths and specialties.”
As a patrol officer, he has been fairly successful as an investigator, Martin said, and investigation caught his attention as a more satisfying way to contribute to the department’s mission.
“As long as I’m doing my job efficiently, it should free up patrol from having to do the followup on heavier cases,” Martin said. Det. Cyndi Pichardo can “only do so much.”
Having just one detective available often leaves patrol officers to start lengthy investigations start to finish, Martin said. With the way their shifts work, alternating between 12-hour graveyard and day shifts every six weeks, it can take six weeks, information an officer needs may not be available for up to six weeks at a time.
His new position will help alleviate that.
With detectives writing warrants and subpoenas, that will take a burden off of patrol officers, Lynn said.
“If it’s going to be a heavier case, something that will bog down patrol side, it’ll be shipped over to me or Cyndi,” Martin said. While it will be a case-by-case basis in which detective picks up investigations, Martin will generally handle child abuse and sex cases. Pichardo will generally handle drugs and street crime.
It should help officers to find more time for smaller investigations and followup, Martin said. Everyone will have the ability to do more thorough investigations.
“I think it’ll raise our case clearance (rate),” he said.
The crime rate is a “big equation,” Martin said, with a lot of variables that contribute to ebb and flow.
But controlling what they can through more and better investigations, they can deliver more suspects to the judicial system, he said.
“Really, we’re hoping to improve some of our clearance rates,” Lynn said, and the department will be able to gather material evidence more quickly.
Martin said he would like to remain in detectives long term.
“My interest is to do sort of what Cyndi has done, try to make myself so valuable to the department that they won’t want to move out of detectives,” Martin said.
Martin has already had experience as a patrol officer, and he is happiest about the outcome in a child abuse case he worked.
“It was a child abuse-sex abuse case, pretty disgusting case,” Martin said. “There were things that make your skin crawl.”
He started the followup in the case, and Pichardo wrote search warrants and interviewed the suspect.
“He didn’t even try to fight it in court,” Martin said. “He accepted the plea deal, and he got over eight years in prison. It’s the kind of case you don’t ever want to have to go deal with. It’s a child victim. The kind of crime committed against her, to be able to step in, put an end to what was happening to her and hold that person accountable for what they’d done and making that child safer and give that child a piece of her life back… I hold a soft spot in my heart for kids who go through that.”
He enjoys tugging on the string and watching the case unravel into a solved crime, he said. He and Sgt. Ryan Cummings worked a string of burglaries, and in the process, uncovered victims who didn’t even know they were victims.
The suspect didn’t get prison time, but the court ordered him into drug treatment, Martin said.
“After he completed his course, he came to the Police Department and looked like a completely different person. He actually thanked me for holding him accountable.”
It’s not something officers see often with people they’ve arrested 15 times, he said.
“When they finally turn things around, it makes you feel like what you’re doing in this job is valuable.”