MEDORA
Nearly a year after becoming the Medora town marshal, Richard Hanlin has resigned.
The 48-year-old submitted his resignation letter to the Medora Town Council during its meeting Monday night at the town hall.
His last day will be Feb. 23 unless the council agrees to forgo his notice. The council thanked him for giving his two-week notice but didn’t take any action on the matter.
“I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to serve as the town marshal of the Medora Police Department,” Hanlin wrote in the letter. “I have enjoyed my time here in Medora. I have recently accepted another position with another department. … Again, thanks for this opportunity.”
After the meeting, Hanlin said he has been offered a job as a full-time officer with the Prince’s Lakes Police Department in Johnson County. He said that’s where he started his law enforcement career in 1993, and he has been working there and in Trafalgar part time along with full time in Medora.
“I’ve always been treated well there,” he said of Prince’s Lakes, a town of about 1,500 people. “The people there are nice. It’s just a good community to work in. It’s back in my home county, and it’s just an overall good place.”
Plus, the job offers benefits, retirement and insurance, none of which he had in Medora.
“This opportunity came up, and it’s too much to pass up,” Hanlin said.
The Portland native relocated to the Center Grove area of Greenwood and lived there most of his life.
After graduating from Center Grove High School in 1990, he earned an associate degree in criminal justice from Vincennes University three years later. He then started at Prince’s Lakes and later graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in Plainfield in 1994.
“It’s a nice town,” Hanlin said of Prince’s Lakes. “It’s a lake community. It’s out in the country, but they are progressive. They want to make the town be productive, and it is in all facets — police, street and water.”
Hanlin said a full-time position recently came open there with the retirement of an officer.
He has been there part time for three years, filling in for the full-time officers when they are off for holidays or vacations.
“One of the main reasons I’m getting hired back is I’m already there,” Hanlin said. “I’ve been there, that’s where I started my career at the end of ‘93, so pretty much, I’m going to end my career there. I don’t plan on leaving unless I absolutely have to.”
After serving as chief of the Crothersville Police Department for five years, Hanlin became deputy marshal with the Spencer Police Department in Owen County. He was there 11 months before returning to Jackson County to be the Medora town marshal.
Since then, he said he has worked various hours of the day, helped at the school and upgraded equipment.
“The town had a lot of old equipment in the police department, such as tasers and radios, and I’ve helped get that updated,” he said. “We just recently got $16,000 worth of new mobiles and car radios. When I came here, the tasers were all broken but one. I got those repaired. We’ve got a new computer that we needed for the police department, and I just got one for the police vehicle.”
The in-car computer for the marshal’s Dodge Durango is a big improvement, Hanlin said.
“The county has had those for about 15 years, 20 years now, and Medora still didn’t have in-car,” he said. “That’s just how police work is done anymore, so getting that done is something big.”
The department has a 2007 Chevrolet Impala that reserve officers use, but Hanlin said it’s “on its last leg” and needs to be replaced.
“There are talks about making the Durango the reserve vehicle and buying a new one because there is money for it, I was told,” he said. “So there are some things in the works here.”