Officer Tim Hein
Hein was sworn into the Keizer Police Department (KPD) at a city council meeting in late October. He came from the Silverton Police Department (SPD), where he worked for 10 years.
He was hired on at the SPD straight out of college and worked on patrol and traffic. He was promoted to sergeant, but he was drawn to Keizer because it still has a small town feel but is a slightly larger agency the SPD.
“It wasn’t so big of an agency where I thought that I would feel like I’m just a number or something like that. Everybody knows everybody here,” Hein said.
The most notable difference between the two departments is the call volume. Hein said he gets more calls while working on patrol in Keizer then Silverton would get in both shifts.
When he was with SPD he was involved in a shooting where the suspect hid under two mattresses — which takes the cake as the strangest thing he’s seen on the job.
“It wasn’t like the mattresses were on a bed frame like we would all think. It was literally a mattress on the floor that he had cut a hole into the box spring and was hiding down in there,” Hein said.
One of the things that he enjoys about the job is that he does new things every day.
He shadowed a detective for a senior project in high school and fell in love with the ever changing challenges of police work.
Officer Tim Hein being sworn in at the city council meeting.
Keizertimes reporter Lauren Murphy is casting a spotlight on some of our local first responders in a continuing series. If you would like to suggest someone for this series (EMT/paramedics, firefighters, police officers, nurses, etc.), email [email protected].