By Bill Laitner
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard has been recognized as the nation’s outstanding sheriff of 2016.
Bouchard was chosen from among more than 3,000 elected sheriffs across the country, and he’s the first Michigan sheriff to gain the honor bestowed by National Sheriffs’ Association, based in Alexandria, Va., the organization said.
The Ferris E. Lucas Award is given in memory of another Michigander – a former St. Clair County sheriff who was executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association, 1964-1982.
“I’m pretty excited and touched by this,” Bouchard said Wednesday . The national association said it gives the award “for contributions made to improve the office of sheriff on the local, state and national levels; and for involvement in the community above and beyond the responsibilities required.”
Besides running one of the nation’s largest sheriff’s offices, with 1,300 employees and an annual budget of $141 million, Bouchard has had regional and national impact on law enforcement, according to the sheriffs’ group.
Bouchard, along with police chiefs in Oakland County, led in the rapid growth of CLEMIS, a computerized system for sharing law-enforcement data with other counties in Michigan, cited by the U.S. Department of Justice as “the single largest and most successful law enforcement consortium in the United States.” And because of his decades as a state lawmaker, he’s developed into an effective voice for law enforcement in Lansing, as well as in Washington, D.C., where he speaks as vice president of government affairs for another nationwide group – the Major County Sheriffs’ Association of America.
Bouchard was appointed Oakland County Sheriff in 1999, then elected in 2000 and every four years since. Prior to his appointment, he was a state senator representing southeast Oakland County and, before that, a police officer in Bloomfield Township and in Beverly Hills.
This week, Bouchard said he was surprised not only to receive the national award but also to be honored by Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, who named Bouchard as a recipient of her “Victims’ Service Distinction Awards.”
“Then she gave me a birthday cake,” Bouchard said, chuckling. He turns 60 on Saturday. Others to receive Cooper’s award were three advocacy groups – HAVEN, Parents of Murdered Children and Common Ground – in Cooper’s annual citations given during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which ends this weekend.
Coypright 2016 the Detroit Free Press