Matthew Reinhardt named 2018 Apopka Police Officer of the Year

From the Apopka Police Department

There are many reasons APD Officer Matthew Reinhardt is deserving of the Officer of the Year award. As a patrol-level officer, he took on the demanding project of the Apopka Police Fleet Vehicle Coordinator.

This job has him working hand in hand with our fleet services scheduling maintenance and handling repairs to damaged vehicles which has dramatically reduced vehicle downtime. He is also the department fleet liaison between fleet management and the contracted vehicle outfitters who apply decals, install lights and make our patrol vehicles functional offices.

Officer Reinhardt also alleviated the stress of locating a “pool” or used vehicle when an assigned vehicle is down for service by assigning each squad a designated pool vehicle for use. Officer Reinhardt showed cost savings by coordinating the re-build of an additional Citizens Police Academy vehicle by utilizing three out of service or “dead-lined” vehicles. He coordinated and consolidated the rebuilding of multiple fleet vehicles saving the city in excess of $10,000.

Officer Reinhardt assisted in ordering 18 new vehicles in 2018 and he standardized the placement of stripes and insignias making any refit from vehicle to vehicle interchangeable. Officer Reinhardt was also instrumental in implementing an Incident Command Vehicle training for six new operators and upgraded the command vehicle with a functioning mobile dispatch array. He personally installed the hardware, saving over $1000 and eliminating the need for an outsourced contractor.

His “user-friendly” set up provides an immediate up and running operation for any contingency with little to no delay. Officer Reinhardt also became the Radio Maintenance Point of Contact which immediately had him take over the department communications need and to coordinate the programming of over 140 radios for the entire department’s handheld and in-car radios. Officer Reinhardt overtook the body-worn camera program and accounted for the collection and return of outdated cameras while reissuing the new cameras.

He then personally trained all department personnel in the new program required to operate the system. He sacrificed his personal time to coordinate the necessary training needed to all the rotating shifts. He is now the department’s first point of contact for all radio and body camera issues and liaison between the outside companies that support those systems. For our Accident Form Program, the APD is required to have a template of every crash. Officer Reinhardt took the initiative to create a template of over a dozen of the most dangerous intersections in Apopka. He uploaded the template into all the mobile laptops allowing officers to use a drop-down screen to insert a pre-drawn diagram. This template saves officers time by eliminating the need to reconstruct these most popular intersections.

For all of these reasons and so many more Officer Reinhardt is deserving of the Officer of the Year for 2018.