Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home Police Department named Sgt. Jason Van Eck employee of the year last week.
Sgt. Van Eck has been with the department since 1993. He was promoted to sergeant about three years ago.
After graduating from Sweet Home High School in 1989, Sgt. Van Eck attended Linn-Benton Community College and interned at Sweet Home Fire Department. At age 22, he went to work at SHPD.
“I like it,” Sgt. Van Eck said of the department. “I really don’t have any plans on leaving. My family is here. My kids live here. It’s nice to be able to spend lunch break at ball games. It’s a nice department to work for.”
The award “was a shock, an absolute surprise,” Sgt. Van Eck said. He thought it would go to another officer.
Department employees nominate the award winner based on a variety of criteria, including integrity, positive attitude, ability to take criticism, consistency, competence, reliability, compassion and more.
“I was very surprised and happy, I guess, that they felt that way about me,” Sgt. Van Eck said.
After about 11 years in police work, Sgt. Van Eck still enjoys the job.
“There’s nothing else that I can think of that I would like to go do every day,” Sgt. Van Eck said. It’s a challenge, and there’s always a surprise. He enjoys the excitement, the ability to help people “and their reactions when you’re able to solve whatever type of calls they have.”
Those calls can include criminal complaints, but often he is just as happy to help out on seemingly less significant calls.
He related a story about a call a couple of months ago where a woman’s bed was shaking. Sgt. Van Eck responded and learned that it was a hospital bed and that the vibrate mode was on. He was able to show the woman how to turn it off.
“That probably means more to me than chasing after speeding cars,” Sgt. Van Eck said.
“This year, it was a very clear consensus that Jason was the winner,” Police Chief Bob Burford said. “Jason was a challenging officer in his first year or two. He grew up here in Sweet Home, and it was a little bit of a struggle for him to make the transition into the straight and narrow expectations of police work.
“However Jason has come a long way. He sought out training opportunities throughout the years and prepared himself for a supervisory role; and the younger officers very much look up to him.”
He coaches those officers, offering the experiences he gained from his own transition into police work,” Chief Burford said.
The department also presented Office John Trahan a piece of the patrol car he ran into a deer during a pursuit last year. It was the last collision involving a Sweet Home patrol car.
The department cut a piece of the hood out for the presentation. Marked in one corner is “Bambi – 1, Car 46 – 0.”
While pursuing a subject up Ames Creek Drive on Sept. 21, Trahan’s car struck a deer ending the pursuit.
The pursuit commenced again 15 minutes later out of town along Highway 228 and Crawfordsville Drive, and the subject was apprehended.