They patrol the streets of Evansville and often don't get the thanks that they deserve for protecting our community, but Thursday, the downtown Kiwanis Club named their officer of the year.
Officer Steve Hicks was chosen by his fellow officers for his outstanding performance, as well as cracking open a local drug case that stemmed a federal investigation that is still ongoing.
A hunch led him to search an Evansville home where multiple pounds of marijuana, along with the discovery of almost a half a million dollars, was found.
"I thought, 'That's a lot of money' and I thought, 'I better show somebody else before I pass out here,' because it was a large amount of money," Hicks recalled. "I've never seen anything close to that. Not even close to that."
That federal investigation included 17 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs in the US And nearly 3,000 pounds in Mexico.
It showed how a simple run can turn into a huge investigation.
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