Tom Kummrow, law enforcement liason with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety for northern Minnesota, did something on Monday, Feb. 6, that he said he typically has never done before. He personally presented achievement awards to three Kimball police officers. The reason he appeared at the Kimball City Council meeting to make the presentation in person was because Kimball was the only police agency in his norhtern Minnesota northern region that had the entire department being honored. Police Chief Tod Rohloff, officer Tom Decker and officer Jim Frilstad all received awards. According to Kummrow, last May the Office of Traffic Safety asked all Minnesota law enforcement agencies to inform the public about the seriousness of not wearing their seatbelts and the consequences – getting a ticket or having an accident and being seriously injured or killed. For a two-week period of time (Memorial Day weekend of 2005), officers were asked to pay special attention to seatbelt enforcement. “The Kimball Police Department always does a good job of enforcing the seatbelt law, but we asked that all agencies do more,” Kummrow said. “And they did – we had more than half of the agencies in Minnesota participating in what we called the May Seatbelt Mobilization.” In cooperation with an even larger plan with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), all the states participated in a similar plan. After that, NHTSA received media releases explaining what each agency did and selected agencies and officers to be honored with achievement awards. Kimball Police Department, which is part of the Great Lakes Region, was the only agency in the northern area that had all of its three officers chosen to be honored with achievement awards. Because this was such a rare achievement, Kummrow, who lives in Fergus Falls and typically doesn’t make the presentations himself, decided to make the trip to Kimball and present Rohloff, Decker and Frilstad with a plaque and a commemorative citation book. “Because of the job the police department here (Kimball) does, I felt the need to come in person,” Kummrow said. “I feel really good about the great job they are doing. They’re really nice guys.”
