Dalton Officer Of The Month Honored For Investigative Effort

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

Officer Caleb Morang was honored as the Dalton Police Department's Officer of the Month for July after his role in solving a series of burglaries and fraud cases. Officer Morang received the honor at Tuesday morning's meeting of the Dalton Public Safety Commission. 

Caption: Assistant Chief Chris Crossen (left) presents the DPD's Officer of the Month Award to Officer Caleb Morang (right)

Officer Morang was selected for the honor for going the extra mile while investigating a fraud case at the Shugart Road Walmart. Officer Morang was following up on the case which had happened several days before when he realized that the suspect was back inside the store. 

"He had a photo of the suspect and while he was there talking to staff at Walmart, he realized that the suspect was actually there inside the store," Assistant Chief Chris Crossen said while presenting the award. "He identified him visually and was able to apprehend the suspect after a short pursuit."

Officer Morang then took the suspect back to the Police Services Center and interviewed him about the case. Instead of focusing solely on the one credit card fraud case, Officer Morang soon realized his suspect had been much more busy. 

"(Morang) was able to identify that he was also a suspect in several burglaries and other cases around the city," Crossen explained. "Due to not just looking at the case he had in front of him and taking charges on that case but also following up and consistently striving to look to take the case further, he was able to clear up multiple cases that we had been looking into. Because of this, there were approximately eight burglaries and several financial transaction card fraud cases that were cleared because of (Morang's) great work."

Officer Morang is a 7-year veteran of the Dalton Police Department, joining the agency in March 2016. He was also honored with the department's Life Saving Award in 2018.