SIDNEY — Police Officer Michael McRill was honored with the Sidney Police Department 2016 Officer of the Year Monday evening at the Sidney City Council Meeting.
This is the second time McRill has been bestowed with the recognition, and is the only time the department has had a two time selection. He received the award in 2006 also. Police Chief William Balling said the nomination was unanimous.
“Coming over from a teaching background, it was immediately apparent that was in his nature: the passion and teaching and educating of others,” Balling said. “You could always tell Mike was here to do more than just be in patrol.”
McRill started with the Police Department in 2000 and has served in many different areas over his career. Currently he is the community resource officer for the city, but also has been an active patrol officer, school resource officer, tactical response team member, field training officer, range officer, and crisis intervention officer.
As the community resource officer, McRill has developed and helped to improve several community programs such as RAD, the female self-defense class; given presentations on fraud and heroin education, an active shoot seminar and a safety town session for the youth.
Balling said when McRill came back to working on the road, he was a field training officer “nurturing other people and creating officers in his image; officers we want to have on the department. That process changed the department. Not one individual wasn’t touched by Mike McGrill. We were constantly getting reports of people saying, ‘do you know that Mike and his family did this for us.’ I was never surprised when I heard his name in a positive.”
Other than his work as a police officer, McRill is busy in other community capacities. He currently is on the board of Samaritan Works and Clear Creek Farms, and works at the Alpha Center, Salvation Army and Shelby Hills.
When receiving the Officer of the Year award in the presence of his family, McRill thanked his them, his “brothers” from the fire department and detailed several fellow members from the police department. In closing when summing up his love for his work, McRill joked that he would do the job for a lot less.
In conjunction with McRill’s award, also was the proclamation made by Mayor Michael Barhorst of May 15-21 as Police Week, as well as the proclamation of May 15 as Peace Officers’ Memorial Day in Sidney.
