Butler County Chief Deputy Sheriff Mike Lammers is spending his final few days on the job.
He’s worked for the sheriff’s department since the mid-1990’s, and tells RadioOnTheGo News that advancements in technology have helped law enforcement.
“I remember coming to work one day and there was a bag cell phone on the counter and I looked at that and I’m like, what is this? Tim Junker was the sheriff at the time. He’s like, hey, he’s like, he goes, I got a cell phone. I want you to try this thing out. It was literally, it was one of those bag telephones. It had its own little carrying case and you plugged it into the cigarette lighter. And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Like I’m cruising around Butler County and I could stop somewhere and call the office instead of doing it over the radio. It was crazy. And that was right in that nineteen ninety five time frame I think and obviously you know where we’re at with cell phones do everything with a cell phone which has been great but it’s also led to a lot of the issues that law enforcement today that we’re dealing with is the white collar, the scams, the fraud that many of those are happening because the access that people have now to their accounts you know just right there in their hand just by getting into their phone and open up an account.”
RadioOnTheGo News asked Lammers what will be a challenge for law enforcement agencies moving forward.
“I would say right now, as far as law enforcement goes, challenges wise, we’re 100% in that same situation as the difficulty in getting people to want to do this job. Like I said, back in the 1990s, there would be where from 60 to 80 applicants for an open position. Throughout the 2000s, maybe have 20 or 30 for a position. And over the last few years, we’re lucky to have 10 applicants for an open deputy position. And the same thing goes for dispatch, jailer positions. Not a career that’s keeping up with the demands. Private sector seems to be where more people want to be in for a lot of different reasons that can be debated.”
Lammers has been chief deputy in the Butler County Sheriff’s Department since 2018.
