Debbie McDonald: The Difference Maker behind the badge

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Debbie McDonald has been making a difference in the field of law enforcement for over 20 years. Now the Deputy Chief of Police for the City of Linton, McDonald continues to be a difference maker. For her efforts in going above and beyond the call of duty for the Linton community, Deputy Chief McDonald has been nominated as a 2019 Greene County Difference Maker.

McDonald has been a member of the Linton Police Force for 16 years, beginning in 2003 as an officer.

“Debbie is a staple in our town,” said Sarah Swan, who nominated McDonald as a Difference Maker. Swan is a former dispatcher for the Linton Police Department who worked alongside McDonald.

“She is the ‘Mother Hen’ of our police department.”

McDonald chuckled upon hearing this.

“Currently I’m the oldest one here,” the Deputy Chief acknowledged. “I’m obviously the only female officer. So I’m everybody’s ‘mother.’ If they make a mess I make them clean it up. If their uniform isn’t squared away I fix it. If they need pants altered I fix them. Just anything and everything. I’m their mother.”

Swan also mentioned, “Debbie goes above and beyond her call of duty for our community. Not only does she excel at her profession, she goes out of her way to right all the wrongs in the world she possibly can.”

Officers are hired to protect and serve and going ‘above and beyond’ often comes with the territory. But there are many ways in which McDonald goes the “extra mile.”

“I guess I do go above and beyond because If I see someone who needs something I do my best to get it for them,” McDonald said. “If I’m on a call and I run across somebody and they need food I make sure they get food. If someone needs furniture I find them furniture. Whatever somebody needs when I run across them I do my absolute best to help.”

Swan also mentioned McDonald’s compassion for strangers and her ability to stay calm and smile in the most intense situations.

“There are absolutely a lot of stressful situations in my line of work,” the Deputy Chief said. “Honestly – on or off the job – I treat everybody as if they’re my own family. The way I would talk to my mom, my kids or grandkids, I treat everybody the same way.

“If I run across a kid doing something wrong, I don’t treat them any differently than I would my own grandkids.”

Another nominator, her daughter Kanitra Troup, spoke of how McDonald donates her time outside the uniform in the community. McDonald provided a current example.

“One that comes to mind is a young man who is living with his great-grandmother,” she said. “He doesn’t have much interaction with other children and other people. So I kind of took him under my wing.

“He’s spent the night at my house. He comes to my house and goes fishing. I taught him how to fish.”

And now that the young man has been taken under McDonald’s wing, the department as a whole has taken him under their wing as well.

“They tell him if he gets in trouble, if they’re there because he’s misbehaving they always tell him, ‘I’m telling Debbie.’ Because they don’t want me to find out he’s been misbehaving. I talk to him as if he was my own grandchild. And he just doesn’t want to disappoint me.”

Troup also said, “Debbie is a positive, influential female role model for the young women in our county. She pushes people to reach their full potential and never fails to reach her own goals.”

While she acknowledges her place as a role model for young women, McDonald says, “I try to be a role model for all people, on duty or off.”

As she explained, in police work an officer can get a bad name very easily. “I try to think about, ‘If I do this what’s going to happen?’ I try to think ahead. I try to base everything I do and how I treat people on how it’s going to look in the public eye.”

Linton Chief of Police Paul Clark has known McDonald for over 20 years, since the two officers worked together at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle.

Both were sworn into office Aug. 13 after former chief Troy Jerrell’s retirement.

Clark worked for McDonald at the WVFC; now she is working under him.

“I got to know Deb when I worked at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility,” the Linton Police Chief said. “She was my supervisor. We became friends through work there. We’ve been really good friends for 20 years now.

“She was great to work for, she’s great to work with and she’ll be a pleasure to continue to work with in this new role of hers and mine both.”

Clark says sometimes in law enforcement it’s easy for an officer to become cynical. “But that doesn’t seem to happen with her.”

As Swan pointed out, it goes back to Debbie’s ability to smile even in the most intense situations.

“Debbie’s got the biggest heart in the world,” Clark said. “She sees good in absolutely everybody.

“She puts everyone else before herself. It’s always been that way with her and I presume it will always be that way.”

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  • Very well deserved!

    -- Posted by ille de civitate on Wed, Sep 18, 2019, at 4:36 PM
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