Three of Lansdale’s police officers will soon have new ranks, and one will mark a major milestone.
Council voted unanimously this week to promote current Sergeant Adrienne Gori to the rank of lieutenant, and Officers Richard Kruppenbach and Matthew Erbele to the rank of sergeant.
"This is a significant milestone for the Lansdale Police Department, with the first female member of the command staff in the form of the first female lieutenant,” said councilwoman Meg Currie Teoh.
Earlier this month, council’s public safety committee voted ahead a round of promotions, due in part to a wave of new officer hires at the start of the year. After several senior officer retirements and promotions in 2017, the department has been led by police Chief Mike Trail, police Lieutenant Ryan Devlin as second-in-command, and head of the department’s accreditation process, and overseen by that lieutenant are the department’s community service unit, criminal investigations unit, and patrol division, with a series of sergeants leading squads of officers on the street.
Talks have been ongoing on the department’s staffing levels and whether they’ve kept up with population growth, and police and council have said they expect one current sergeant to go on medical leave, and another to retire, in 2024.
During council’s Nov. 15 meeting, those new promotions became a reality: two action items listed on council’s agenda with blank names were read by Teoh, chair of the public safety committee, as naming Kruppenbach and Erbele, with Gori earning the third promotion.
According to MediaNews Group archives, Kruppenbach joined the department in February 2017 after a prior career in IT, and earned the department’s "Officer of the Year” award for 2018, chosen by his peers based on his ability, work ethic, and demeanor.
Erbele joined the department in 2011 after reaching the rank or sergeant in the U.S. Marines and work as a corrections officer at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, and has been honored several times by the department, including with a unit citation of merit for work on a burglary in the borough in January 2018, another unit citation for rescuing a cat stuck in a tree that year, and for work during a 2022 bomb threat, and has been featured frequently on the department’s Facebook page for serious and not-so-serious work.
Gori joined the department in 2000 after graduating from the Delaware County Police Academy as valedictorian of her class the year before, and has served as a special detective with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office drug task force, and as the department’s liaison for youth aid issues and child customer safety technician. She’s earned numerous merit commendations related to cases of homicide, burglary, armed robbery, and sexual assaults, and has already been a trailblazer: she was the department’s first female detective, and in 2016 was promoted to be the department’s first female sergeant.
"We are very proud to be advancing these new members on their leadership journey and Wednesday night’s vote by council was the necessary step to ensure the continued professionalism of the Lansdale Police Department for many years to come,” police Chief Mike Trail said.
All three promotions were approved unanimously by council on Nov. 15, after an announcement from council President Denton Burnell that they had been discussed in executive session prior to the meeting; councilwoman Carrie Hawkins added that she was "really excited” about Gori achieving another first.
All of the promotions are expected to be effective on Jan. 1, with formal swearing-in held during the department’s annual recognition ceremony later that month, Trail said, and the department will present on their updated command structure in February.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 6 with the public safety committee next meeting at 6:30 p.m. that night; for more information visit www.Lansdale.org and for more on the police department follow "Lansdale Borough Police Department ” on Facebook.
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