A Portage Life in the Spotlight: David Reynolds

A Portage Life in the Spotlight: David Reynolds

David Reynolds graduated from Portage High School in 1960. Reynolds continued his education at Indiana University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in forensic studies and a minor in psychology in 1972.

The following year he was hired by the East Gary Police Department, where he worked for five years. Within the first few months, he was tasked to the undercover drug unit. Reynold spent nearly 2 and a half years as an undercover officer.

“It was an experience. I learned a lot,” said Reynolds. “I learned how to put cases together and I learned the whole element of how to handle drug dealers. We did hand to hand buys back then. Most of it was heroin in Hammond and East Chicago.”

After his time working as an undercover was complete, Reynolds was assigned to the detective bureau. He remained there for several years as an investigator. In this position, Reynolds was able to utilize everything he learned while working as an undercover officer.

“What I really found was that most crime is closely associated with drugs. So, if you have a pretty good handle on how these criminals operate and what's going on in those cases-- especially on how to communicate and interrogate them, it really helps as an investigator.” Reynolds said.

In 1978 Reynolds was hired at the Portage Police Department. He stayed with this department for 21 years. During that time he worked undercover, ran the department’s drug unit, and spent time a short time as a patrolman. He was later assigned to the detective bureau and remained there until 1992 when he was promoted to captain of the bureau. In 1996 Reynolds was appointed to Police Chief.

“But, the 11 years before that, I did nothing but work the homicide cases. I was involved in the shotgun murders in 1990. I Was the lead investigator for that,” Reynolds continued, “In 1995 we investigated the death of Sarah Paulsen. That individual who perpetrated that crime turned out to be another serial murderer named Eugene Britt.”

Reynolds ran for Porter County Sheriff and was elected in 1998. There he spent two terms as sheriff. In 2001 Reynolds went back to Indiana University and earned his master in public affairs. He also taught at the university for four years in the the criminal justice program.

“It was my second term as sheriff. It took me three years to get my masters, which I did part time. I was also teaching, going to school, and doing my full-time job as sheriff. I was pretty busy those years.” Sheriff Reynolds admitted.

Sheriff Reynold is now in his second year of his third term as Porter County Sheriff. Since taking office Reynold has made a strong effort to combat drug and heroin crimes throughout Porter County. A major step in his department was creating a systematic method to investigate the scenes of heroin overdoses and then to share that information with other departments.

“We created a Heroin Overdose Response Team. We investigate all overdoses as a crime scene.” Reynolds said. “We started with young patrolmen, who understood the importance of doing this. We educated them on the importance of protocol, asking the certain questions, gathering certain evidence, so we can use it all. We’ve been in operation for 9 months now.”

Information gathered from these crime scenes is then given to the DEA and other departments, who then send feedback and additional information to the Porter County Sheriff Department.

“We all have the same goals to find common denominators, connect the dots, and find out who’s going to Chicago to bring this stuff back. We’re looking for any networking that we can use to identify and make arrests. You can actually see we’re actually making an impact.” Reynolds said.

In addition to the Heroin Overdose Response Team, Reynolds has reached out to the youth of Porter County by educating them on the dangers of drug use. The focus of the program is on prevention and education.

“What we did is we produced an 11-minute video that we showed many times to every middle school and high school student in Porter County.” Reynolds began. “The purpose is to empower the students to make good decisions. Because in the end, it's up to them not to do these substances.”

The video features several inmates at the Porter County Jail telling their stories. The inmates also encourage the students not to make the same decisions they made in life.

“It's not me or the coroner telling them what's right, it's the inmates saying it. They’re saying their life is drastically messed up and they’ve got nothing. They tell them there are two things that will happen if you use heroin, you’re either going to die or you’re going to go to jail.” Reynolds stated.

Reynolds and the department are continuing youth education by creating additional videos with Jesse Harper and JBH Productions to be shown in classrooms. The latest video will be Safe Schools’ “One County, One Protocol” video, which is to display to students how the community is taking steps to make our schools safe.

Sheriff David Reynolds has spent 43 years in law enforcement. The driving force behind his career has always been to make his community a better and safer place for its citizens to live. Through new technology and communication, Reynolds and the department will continue to fight drug abuse and keep the community educated.