PEOPLE OF THE YEAR: DAN TORRES

His Legacy Includes A Reduction In Burglaries And A Crackdown On Meth Labs

Lincoln County Sheriff Dan Torres is not what you'd expect. He's young and
energetic. He balances a hands-on approach to police work with knowing when
to step back and let his lieutenants handle it. He focuses on preventing
crime rather than reacting to it.

And his brand of law enforcement is rocking the community, says Maj. Kevin
Harrison of the Warren County Sheriff's Department. News about arrests made
by Torres' deputies is now a weekly topic in the newspaper or at the coffee
shop. "A criminal's chances of getting caught are increasingly significant
in Lincoln County," Harrison said.

Under Torres' administration, which took office last January, burglaries
have been reduced by 60 percent over the past four years. The new Narcotics
Enforcement Team has busted more than 30 methamphetamine labs, compared
with virtually no drug-related arrests the year before. And the number of
traffic tickets written has gone up to about 1,000 from 400 the previous year.

Torres, 34, is a hometown boy, a graduate of the old Buchanan High in Troy.
But Torres left the area, serving in the U.S. Army and then working for the
Los Angeles Police Department for seven years in its vice and gang units.
He returned home with his wife, Sarah, in 1996, taking a job with the Troy
Police Department. They have three children - Ross, 12, Rachel, 9, and Ben, 2.

Torres said part of his motivation for running for sheriff came from what
he was seeing as a narcotics officer for Troy. The people he was arresting
were people he went to high school with, and he thought it was "embarrassing."

So Torres gave up his steady, well-paying job with Troy to enter the world
of politics, a risky move, considering his career now hinges on the will of
the people every four years.

To date, he's done a good job of juggling the hats of politician and
sheriff, Harrison said. "He is not the stereotypical politician," he said.
"He is more worried about the person than the political ramifications."

That attitude brought criticism during the Arlin Henderson investigation.
Harrison said some saw Torres as "overzealous" in his belief in Joshua
Spangler's story that he killed Henderson and eventual dropping of charges
against Chuck and George Gibson. But Harrison said he saw it a different way.

"If I had a son missing, I'd want the sheriff to take any information and
run 100 miles an hour with it rather than take it and sit on it," he said.

And Torres' people skills seem to be more of an asset than a deficit. For
one thing, they've enabled him to turn morale around in the department.

"The officers have a better attitude, a commitment to what they're doing,"
Associate Circuit Judge Patrick Flynn said. "It's remarkable to change that
in one year."

Torres has accomplished that in part by updating the department's uniform
and letting the officers vote on a new logo design.

He also changed the department's vehicles. The past administration bought
used cars - most with at least 100,000 miles on them - and spent the bulk
of its budget on maintaining them. Torres turned those numbers around,
spending most of the budget to lease new cars and a lot less to maintain them.

Torres said he made the change because of safety; he was concerned about
the officers driving the older vehicles at high rates of speed. One officer
actually had a wheel fall off while he was on patrol. Luckily, he was only
going about 25 miles an hour at the time.

But more than that is the professional look the new vehicles give the
department. "You can't imagine how embarrassing it was when you pulled up
to an investigation or went to pick up a prisoner and your door paneling
fell off," Detective Jason Manyx said. "Now we have a sense of pride when
we pull up."

Torres has divided the 647 miles of the county into four zones, stationing
officers to a particular zone for a three-month period. He's established an
office at the centrally located Lions Club, where deputies can call in
their reports instead of driving all the way back to headquarters. The
change has cut the response time of the officers in half, Torres said.

And he's increased the number of detectives to what will be seven by this
month from two the previous January. He's also put four lieutenants over
four divisions - the jail, communications, patrol and criminal
investigations and narcotics.

He's attracted experienced police officers to fill those positions, too.
One of them is Lt. John Cottle, who gave up a job with the St. Charles
County Sheriff's Department to work with his high-school friend. He said
after Torres was elected, Torres approached him about the criminal
investigations and narcotics unit.

"He said it's your baby; you run it," Cottle said. "He has confidence in
his employees and lets them do their jobs."

Cottle said that Torres is a good boss in other ways, too. He said Torres
realizes the importance of a solid home life in such a high-stress job, so
it's not unusual for him to cover a shift for an officer whose kids are
sick or who has some other family emergency.

Sgt. Tim Swope, a patrol officer with St. Charles County, who formerly
served in its drug unit, said that drawing in the experienced officers is
an especially impressive feat.

"So many smaller departments are seen as stepping stones in a police
officer's career," he said. "Torres has changed that mind-set."

The community is getting behind Torres' efforts too, especially in his
crackdown on methamphetamine. Torres said the department is trying to
educate the public on what to look for. Now it's not unusual to get a call
from an 80-year-old woman who says a weird odor is coming from her
neighbor's house and that there's a lot of traffic there.

Perhaps Torres' most impressive feat though, has been that he has done all
of this on a limited budget, observers say.

He has found ways to free up numbers from one area to benefit another. For
example, he instituted a trustee system at the jail, whereby prisoners do
kitchen work, wash patrol cars, do the prisoners' laundry and perform
maintenance on the jail and police headquarters in exchange for smoking
breaks and segregation from the rest of the jail population.

They've also sold T-shirts at the Lincoln County Fair and used the money to
buy top-of-the-line surveillance equipment for their drug unit.

"There's a lot to be learned from a guy like him," Swope said. "He's got a
lot of good ideas."

Harrison agrees, saying Torres has been the right man at the right time for
Lincoln County. "Even if people don't like him personally, they've got
respect him as a sheriff," he said.