Devon Krebs, Mapleton City Police Department

The following nomination letter was written by John Jackson, Chief of Police for Mapleton City:

Officer Krebs grew up in Mapleton and now serves his community as a full time police officer. Officer Krebs is passionate about his work, but communicates with people in a calm and compassionate manner. There is no doubt in my mind that he truly cares about the people that he serves.

Officer Krebs comes to work with a smile on his face every day. He is pleasant to be around and always looks for the good in a situation. Officer Krebs does not complain, but rather looks for ways for he and his department to improve every day.

Recently Mapleton experienced an increase in theft and drug violations. Officer Krebs jumped in and began investigating all avenues to curb the activity. Without being asked he went through drug house garbage cans in hopes of gathering evidence for a search warrant. He conducted surveillance on numerous homes where drug activity was taking place and made legal stops of vehicles leaving in hopes of stopping the activity. Officer Krebs is passionate about keeping the public safe from impaired drivers. He is our department leader in DUI and drug related arrests.

Officer Krebs is a family first type of officer. He and his wife have three little children together. Officer Krebs and his wife are passionate outdoor people who will hike to extreme places that many of us would not consider.

Officer Krebs is the type of officer that I’m prod to have represent the City of Mapleton. He understands the importance of his role in serving our citizenry. No call is too minor for him to show compassion to.

During July of this year Officer Krebs came to me asking if he could do a community wide bicycle safety event. Officer Krebs is an experienced bicyclist who can do some pretty neat tricks on his mountain bike. I agreed to let him do the event.

Officer Krebs organized the event for an evening in August. The event was heavily attended by our citizens and their children. During the introduction I was touched by Officer Krebs as he told the crowd why he got into Law Enforcement. Officer Krebs explained that he had a brother that died in an avalanche back in 1999 (http://www.avalanche.org/data.php?date=1998-1999&sort=&id=14) . Officer Krebs said that after the incident he felt the best way to honor his brother was to serve the public. Officer Krebs was emotional as he held a picture of his brother up for the crowd. To me, Officer Krebs is in this profession for the right reasons. The event culminated when Officer Krebs took a group of youth on a bike ride over Mapleton’s new trail system. It was a very successful night.

This is tough for Officer Krebs to do and he and his family do not live in Mapleton City. When Officer Krebs is off-duty he feels like he should be home with his family.

There is an adult female that lives in our community that is struggling with an addiction to heroin. Officer Kreb’s has known her for years as they are close to the same age and attended school together. One night Officer Krebs came across her and could see that she was struggling with the addiction. After seeing her he went to her home and collected some garbage from their can in hopes of getting evidence to obtain a search warrant. As he explained this to me he said that if he doesn’t get her some help that she is going to die. Officer Krebs was not concerned with getting higher arrest numbers or statistics, he simply wanted to force her to get help. He told me that he knew she had children and that he was worried about them. My opinion is that many officers would have looked at this as an opportunity to get an arrest, but Officer Krebs can see the big picture and wanted her to get help for she and her children.