Detective Honored As Officer of the Month

Tuesday, July 26th, 2022

Communication is one of the most important tools in the fight against crime. Detectives can develop information and leads on cases, but it won't matter unless that information is in the hands of the officers in the field. The Dalton Police Department is always working to improve communication and information sharing both internally and externally, and on Tuesday they honored one of their detectives for his work to make sure the city's patrol officers have the most up to date information. Detective Matthew Kumnick was recognized as the police department's employee of the month at Tuesday's meeting of the Public Safety Commission. 

At right: Assistant Chief Chris Crossen shakes Detective Matthew Kumnick's hand after presenting his employee of the month award Tuesday morning during a meeting of Dalton's Public Safety Commission

Detective Kumnick is assigned to the gang unit in the Criminal Investigations Division. That unit works in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies in the northwest Georgia region and the FBI as part of a task force to investigate and prosecute gang crimes. Part of that work involves developing information about gang activity. In recent months, Detective Kumnick has been working to make sure that information is in the hands of the patrol division so they can more easily spot potential gang activity and also be on the lookout for wanted persons. 

"Detective Kumnick saw a need within the department," said Assistant Chief Chris Crossen while presenting the award during Tuesday morning's meeting. "Sometimes communication between our investigative division and our patrol division can get stifled and improvement needs to be made. He found a way to share important information of people who our investigators were looking for, important information about things that had been seen, he found a way to share that information with our patrol division where they had that information at their fingertips."

"Once they had that information, it would immediately start paying dividends because those guys knew some specific focus, some specific people to be on the lookout for and we were able to make some arrests," Crossen continued. 

Detective Kumnick joined the Dalton Police Department in the summer of 2011. He began his career as a patrol officer before moving to the Criminal Investigations Division. As part of his employee of the month honor, he receives a day off with pay.