When Jared Minary took the reigns as the department's Audio/Video Technician in January of 2009, he took on what ultimately became a huge task. A large portion of Jared's time is spent performing video and photographic analysis of surveillance evidence association with various criminal cases. In the three years he's worked in this capacity, requests have increased from 100 cases per year to 450 cases in the last fiscal year. In order to keep the work load running smooth, yet processing evidence as quickly as possible, Jared has prioritized requests, bringing the back log down for misdemeanors to less than 3 months and the felony case requests being completed with a few days. Jared works closely with investigating officers, answering questions they may have regarding video evidence processing possibilities and also confers with County Attorneys to discuss evidence prior to giving expert testimony. Several officers have comments that Jared is great to work with, has a very positive attitude and genuinely cares about doing the best job he possibly can to assist with case investigations.

While analyzing video evidence from individual cases, Jared has been able to link several series of offenses. Having been a commissioned police officer with LPD for nine years prior to his current assignment, Jared has been able to fall back to his investigative experience in order to locate and sufficiently document evidence that could be used as part of the probable cause in the officers' arrest affidavits. Jared utilizes department email to relay investigative information, including photos of vehicles, suspects and the suspects' associates, along with MO's to all the individual officers working on specific cases. Occasionally, Jared is needed to respond directly to a victim or business to obtain video evidence. On one such occasion, a bank robbery, the bank employee was unable to access the new video system and the second generation video evidence captured by detectives was not usable. Jared completed a lengthy report, detailing his efforts to recover the video evidence from the bank as well as a neighboring business. His analysis and photo composites ultimately led to the clearance of the case after an FBI agent observed similarities to a party which had been arrested for a string of out of state bank robberies.

Jared helps maintain the department's Crime Stoppers and Facebook web pages. The short videos produced by Jared are supplemented with voice-overs and enhancement tools to highlight identifiable suspect traits. Usually, Jared's unique sense of humor makes its way into these short vignettes, grabbing the attention of viewers and ultimately encouraging citizens to contact LPD with case information and tips. After one of Jared's videos was posted on the Crime Stoppers webpage, tips concerning that particular crime spiked and ultimately led to the clearance of that as well as other cases. Jared's videos are often picked up by the news media and broadcast as local news crews would rather use Jared's unique and clever work rather than their own! Additionally, Jared produces videos for the recruit classes, given to each recruit as a memento of their training experiences. He has also produced training videos for seasoned officers and has trained department personnel to assist him in the upkeep of the Crime Stoppers and LPD internal webpage.

Jared has proven time and again that creative, right-minded thinking is just as crucial to successfully solving unique criminal cases as is investigative skills. For his unending creativity and hard work, the Awards Committee is pleased to present Jared Minary with the 2012 Civilian Employee of the Year Award.