Lodi Welcomes 3 New Police Officers

Recently, the Lodi Police Dept. added 3 new members: Officers Ty Schneider and James Kicmol, as well as Sgt. Leda Wagner.

Unlike other new officers I’ve written about, all three of them come to Lodi with extensive experience under their (gun) belts.  And unlike previous articles about new officers, I was talking to all three at once.  So I’m going to approach this a in a different way–rather than an “article” format, I’m going to write it more as an interview, with the question as the header, and the individual (edited) responses below.

Who Are They?

Officer Ty Schneider originally comes from Janesville, but came to Lodi through a long line of northern cities. He was the police chief in Thorp–the culmination of 16 years in the department–but wanted to move back south and work in a small city.

Officer James Kicmol¹Pronounced “KISS-mole” is a Dane County native who started in law enforcement at 18 as a dispatcher for the Sun Prairie Police Department.  A  year later he applied to the State Patrol, and was accepted.  After 30 years he retired.  But, as he says, “that didn’t work out”.  He went back and worked for the Capitol Police for a year, and thought that was enough. After driving school busses for a year, he decided that law enforcement was easier, and went to work for the Columbia County Sheriff as a court support deputy.  He spent a short period with the Columbus Police Dept until they could find a full-time officer for the position, and then moved to Lodi in a part-time capacity.

Sgt. Leda Wagner hails from Eau Claire County²She pronounced it like “Oakler”, which confused me at first. by way of Columbus.  She then moved on to a 20-year career with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Dept. where she met Chief Wayne Smith.  Sgt. Wagner stepped away from the Sheriff’s office, but wanted to keep her certification.  Lodi, through Chief Smith, extended an offer for part time work. That expanded to full time work.  When Lt. Bill Nichols left, it was decided that Lodi would be better served by sergeants.  Leda was promoted into that role.

What do you like about Lodi?

Wagner: That the community is close.  They like us. It’s pretty law-enforcement-friendly.  You definitely see the respect.

Kicmol: The same as she said. It’s good to get around, get to know people, and see them on a day-to-day basis.  Your exposure here is pretty frequent, so people are going to see you.

Wagner:  They want to reach out and meet us.

What new things would you like to see Lodi adopt?

Schneider:  What attracted me to her was the amount of technology that the department has. Just “up-to-date” technology that the community is willing to provide to the department.

Wagner: A lot of programs that make our work faster [lists off a lot of tech] .

Schneider:  It’s a whole lot of tech that lets us solve crimes faster³In the longer answer, Officer Schneider referred to “safety cameras” that are placed around Lodi. That’s a topic I will be revisiting, as I don’t believe there was any public notice about them being used.

What challenges do you see working in Lodi?

Wagner:  Having a 24-hour coverage.

Kicmol: One of the challenges is that the geographical area is small.  You have to be comfortable with the fact that you don’t have a large area to cover. One thing that’s common in a small community is that you run into the same people.  There can be a challenge in dealing with [repeat people].

Schneider: We deal with 5% of the people 95% of the time.

Listen to the entire interview here: