JUNE 16, 2017, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A3
It’s offi cial
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Joyce Phelps, the fi rst resident to put down a deposit at
Bonaventure at Keizer Station and, Director McKenzie
Owens cut the grand opening ribbon at a ceremony
Saturday, June 10.
Residents and visitors check out the buffet spread
celebrating the grand opening.
KPD offi cer tapped for major award
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Offi cer Martin Powell of
the Keizer Police Department
(KPD) can tell a lot about you
just by looking into your eyes.
He’s particularly adept at
determining whether you are
or have recently been under
the infl uence of an intoxi-
cant or drug. Not only that,
he could tell you what classi-
fi cation of drug you ingested
with an accuracy rate of bet-
ter than 80 percent.
For instance, he might ask
you to follow his fi nger with
your eyes as he traces a line
across your fi eld of vision.
A sober person could do so
with ease, but certain intoxi-
cants will cause pupils to stut-
ter – like when you turn on
the windshield wipers on a
dry day – a “nystagmus” in his
terminology.
“There will be small paus-
es and then spurts of move-
ment,” said Powell. “Depres-
sants will cause pupils to
constrict to pinpoints even
at nighttime. Stimulants and
hallucinogens will cause pu-
pils to dilate at a much slower
rate than normal.”
Those are just a few of the
more than 200 clues he can
use to make his assessments,
and he is very good at it. He’s
kept up his 80 percent accu-
racy rate for fi ve years run-
ning in addition to racking up
a number of DUII arrests and
training his fellow offi cers in-
house and at other agencies.
It was those combined ef-
forts that led KPD Sgt. David
LeDay to nominate Powell
for the Kenneth Snook Drug
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Recognition Expert (DRE)
Award of Excellence. Powell
was selected as the winner
by the award committee last
week.
“You have to be above and
beyond the average offi cer for
the DRE fi eld and you have
to go above and beyond that
to be worthy of this award,
but that is Martin. He does
this for no extra pay or extra
incentive than what he gets
out of it,” LeDay said.
Powell is only the seventh
offi cer to receive the award
since its inception in 2010,
but he’s now joined the ranks
of the very same people who
trained him in drug recogni-
tion techniques.
“Those people on that list
(of award winners) were the
ones that instructed me and
they know the material in-
side and out as far as teach-
ing. It was humbling to even
be considered for that list,
much less have my name on
it,” Powell said.
Powell started as a reserve
offi cer with Polk County in
2002 and caught the DUII-
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Offi cer Martin Powell, of the Keizer Police Department was re-
cently honored with the Kenneth Snook Drug Recognition Ex-
pert (DRE) Award of Excellence.
recognition bug from his fel-
low offi cers.
“I learned their passion.
The reason I liked it is it’s an
opportunity to prevent crime,
it’s proactive,” Powell said.
LeDay equates a DUII ar-
rest to stopping a homicide in
progress. Not every instance
of driving under the infl u-
ence ends in a fatality, but the
ones stopped before reaching
that point can save lives.
Powell had to undergo a
rigorous selection process to
qualify for DRE classes and
then had to complete the
classes themselves before be-
ing certifi ed fi ve years ago.
While drunk driving can
be assessed with the assis-
tance of technology, Powell’s
DRE skills are brought into
play when a breath test yields
negative results. When that
happens, Powell is brought in
for an assessment that covers
everything from basic physi-
ology, like pulse rate, to be-
havior to recent history.
In the best cases, he can
help divert someone from
their trajectory into rehab or
open up a single arrest into a
larger investigation into the
production or delivery of
controlled substances.
“I get letters from people
I arrested that thanked me
for doing it. They know it
was terrible at the time, but
they’ve changed their life or
helped others after getting
clean or sober,” Powell said.
Powell doesn’t come out
and say it, but he takes a lot
of pride in his work and seeks
out arrests – DUIIs – that
other offi cers are less com-
fortable with because of the
amount of work they entail
and the scrutiny that follows
in court.
“There is no purpose for
a DUII. Most people have
the ability to take a taxi or
walk. They just don’t think
anything bad is ever going to
happen to them. We hope to
curb that behavior in others
with the arrests we make,”
Powell said.