By Joe Morey
News Editor
LCO Police Chief Tim DeBrot presented three of his officers and the department’s assistant director with awards to recognize their contributions.
“I want to recognize the work these officers do and what they are doing,” DeBrot said. “They deserve to be recognized.”
Pictured left is LCO Police Assistant Director Dianah Ton and to the right are Investigator Christ Leverton (left) and Sgt. Brandon Sams. Not pictured is Investigator Zaug.
Each of the officers and assistant director received a plaque that read, “In appreciation of your years of dedicated service, hard work and commitment to the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Police Department.” They also received a challenge coin for “excellence in police work.” In addition to that, Chief DeBrot presented them each with a $50 gift certificate to The Steakhouse and Lodge in Hayward.
Dianah Ton is the assistant director of the police department, who has been in her position since long before Chief DeBrot came into his position in 2012.
“Dianah is a master at what she does. Dianah is responsible for keeping this Department running as smooth as it does. Dianah does all the book and record keeping for our department and like I said before, she is a master at it,” Chief DeBrot said.
DeBrot said Dianah has many agencies that depend on her for information and reports from LCO officers.
“Dianah will do whatever she has to in order to get this information and reports to where they are supposed to go. She will come in hours early, stay hours after quitting time and come in on holidays and days that she should’ve been off to get paperwork where it needs to go. Dianah can account for every cent and dollar that has come through our department from day one when she was hired,” Chief DeBrot said.
According to DeBrot, Dianah makes a list of things to do for that day or week and works non-stop for the entire time she is here to get it done.
Also awarded was Criminal and Sensitive Crimes Investigator Zachary Zaug.
“When we promoted Zach to this Investigator position our department had upwards of 30+ open sexual assault cases. Zach dove in immediately on these cases and in a few short months he had all of them closed out with referrals to court on some, arrests made on some of them and the rest he took as far as he could and had to close them out with no charges filed,” Chief DeBrot shared.
He said Zach is very committed to his job and attended an Internet Crimes class dealing with pedophiles soliciting young women and children.
“Just about every household at LCO has internet and is a potential victim to these bad people. Zach posed as a young child on our reservation and had multiple suspects agree to meet this ‘child’ here and were promptly arrested with assistance from many local Law Enforcement Departments. All arrests went without a hitch except one where Zach took a header and landed face first on the blacktop. The arrest was made in that case also.”
Chief DeBrot also explained some of the LCO officers hold more than one title here at the LCO Police Department.
“That is out of necessity, as we are a small department. We try to be a self-sustaining department with our own supervisors, investigators and instructors. So, as a result the officers fill many roles,” DeBrot said.
The next two officers Chief DeBrot honored were both awarded as Officers of the Year for 2023. DeBrot said rather than one honoree for the year, he had to choose both as co-officers of the year due to their both deserving the honor and they couldn’t choose one.
The first was Drug Investigator Chris Leverton. Chris was promoted to Drug Investigator on Dec. 13, 2021 after the previous investigator Dominic Ciatti had passed away from cancer.
“When Chris started, he was a green horn in every sense of the word and had to learn much of his job on his own. With help from a couple other Investigators, Chris quickly picked up on the responsibilities and duties of the job and it wasn’t too long afterwards he was investigating, doing drug buys, applying for search warrants and referring charges and making arrests of drug users, sellers and suppliers,” Chief DeBrot explained. “Chris now is very adept in all aspects of his role and has also made many other departments and agencies part of his network by collaborating with them on information exchange, setting up buys from suppliers, and being a part of the search warrants and seizures of drugs, money and guns.”
DeBrot said Chris just recently in the last several months provided information on suspects, vehicles and locations of drug suppliers and worked with the BIA Police in northern Wisconsin and was involved in making buys where drugs were bought and seized. As a result of these buys, the BIA Police executed more buys and bought and seized four pounds of methamphetamine.
“As a result of these buys the BIA Police executed search warrants on November 30th where 864.4 grams of Fentynal, 858.3 grams of Methamphetamine, 102 Fentynal pills, four handguns and $21,578.00 in cash was seized with four arrests made. This was the result of Chris’s hard work and dedication and spending many hours, sometimes over and above his regular shift, to surveil, interview and gather this information. As a result of Chris’s work, he may have saved tribal members from harm, overdoses and death. Who knows how many pounds or grams of these drugs were earmarked for the LCO Reservation. Who knows how many LCO members could have been harmed or worse yet, overdosed and died. I would like to commend Chris for the work he did here.”
Also named as Officer of the Year was Sergeant Brandon Sams. Brandon was the first officer Chief DeBrot hired when he became Chief of Police in 2012. In 2016, Brandon was promoted to Sergeant.
“Since that time, Brandon has been my and Dianah’s right hand. Brandon has many roles here at the LCO PD, as sergeant, instructor, field training officer, etc. If you look up the word Sergeant in the dictionary, Brandons picture should be there,” DeBrot said. “Brandon is our go to guy when we need something or something done. Brandon is always there. He comes when we call, he’s there when we need him to do something and he’s even there when we don’t need him.”
Chief DeBrot said Brandon never fails to answer his phone and doesn’t hesitate to help when needed for an assignment.
“Brandon is an excellent police officer and a walking statute book. He knows all laws and demands his officers to be the best they can be,” Chief DeBrot said.