Detective is Shelton's Officer of the Year

Mike Gettle has worked for five local law enforcement agencies and one prison. He said he found his "niche" as a detective with the Shelton Police Department.

"Being a detective is what I always wanted to do," he said.

On Tuesday evening, Gettle was awarded the department's Officer of the Year award at the meeting of the Shelton City Council in the Shelton Civic Center. Friends and family watched as Capt. Dan Patton presented the award. An audience member handed him a blackberry pie.

"It's very humbling because it's voted by the officers in the department ... I'm really appreciative of everyone in the department," he told the Journal before the meeting. He pointed out that at the age of 53, he's the oldest officer in the department.

Gettle was born in Tacoma and grew up in Albany, Oregon. From 1992 to 1996, he was a combat medic with the U.S Army while stationed in Japan and at Fort Lewis. He worked in the medical field and then started a landscaping maintenance business.

Gettle worked as a corrections officer at Washington Corrections Center in Shelton and a reserve officer for the Mason County Sheriff's Office. He was an officer for the Skokomish Tribal Police, the Squaxin Island Tribal Police Department and the McCleary Police Department. With those three agencies, he was a narcotics case officer and a firearms instructor.

Gettle was a reserve academy recruit for the Shelton Police Department in the mid- 2010s and then joined the McCleary Police Department in February 2014. He joined the Shelton Police Department in April 2022.

Gettle was assigned from patrol to detectives in April 2023. He was awarded a training scholarship to attend the 2023 Northwest Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Conference in the fall of 2023.

The city's website states the through the detective's dedication to investigating crimes against children, "Gettle solidified working relationships with law enforcement agencies throughout the state. He was instrumental in the groundwork to make the Shelton Police Department an affiliate of ICAC, which brought investigative assistance to Shelton from ICAC experts and additional training operations."

Both of Gettle's sons, Thomas and Taylor, graduated from Shelton High School.

In 2023, the department's detectives responded to 321 cases, up from 251 in 2022. The cases included one arson, 30 burglaries, 22 cases of fraud or forgery, three homicides and 44 sexual assaults.