Van Buren County Sheriff's Office

The Van Buren County Sheriff's Office is supported by numerous special units that assist in the professional operation of the department.

We have three groups of volunteers that not only support our agency, but also other agencies and all citizens in our county. They are the Van Buren County Mounted Division, the Van Buren County Victim Services Unit and the Van Buren County Reserve Deputies. We have a total of 54 volunteers in these units that assist victims of crimes, augment our full-time employees in law enforcement and security details.

Emergency Services Unit

The Emergency Services Unit (ESU) consists of 15 certified officers, Including 2 liaison officers and 2 team leaders. The ESU is available to all county law enforcement agencies, but is mainly used by the Narcotic's Division in the execution of search warrants and apprehension of wanted subjects. All officers are highly trained in their specific function and continue to train on a monthly basis.

Crime Technicians
This unit consists of 6 deputies who are certified Crime Scene Technicians. These deputies are responsible for processing the scene of crimes and also the processing of certain evidence to the crime lab.

Crash Investigator
Deputy Ryan Jahr is a certified Traffic Crash Reconstructionist. Deputy Jahr has attended many sessions in the last two years which qualify him to make detailed investigations into tire marks, minimum speed calculations, vehicle vaults, vehicle lamps as well as other areas of crash data.

K-9 Unit
Deputy Kevin VanBrussel (269-657-3101), Deputy Scott Schmitt (269-657-3101 Ext. 828) and Deputy Tony Evans (269-657-3101 Ext. 802) are the K-9 officers for the department. Deputy VanBrussel's partner, Xack, is a male German Shepherd born on July 7th, 2001. Xack is certified in tracking and drug detection, and already has numerous felony arrests and apprehensions to his credit. Deputy Schmitt's partner is Xago. Deputy Schmitt and Xago are also credited with numerous felony arrests and apprehensions. Xago is also certified in tracking and drug detection. Deputy Evan's partner is Goliath which is also a male German Shepherd, and is a tracking and drug dog that is already also credited with several drug related arrests and apprehensions. Xago is the brother to Xack Vom Schafer See in which both K-9's were acquired through Schafer Lake Kennels in Lawrence. Goliath has the same father as Xack and Xago and was purchased in Indianapolis, Indiana. All three K-9's will assist local and State Police agencies when needed. Xack, Xago, and Goliath are great additions and members of the Sheriff's Office.

Dive Team

As the Sheriff's Office is responsible for all waters within the County (113 Lakes in which 78 have access), the dive team performs search and rescue operations. The dive team will also search for evidence as needed. The dive team has 7 active, certified divers, along with 3 support personnel. The dive team not only is responsible for jurisdiction of all the inland lakes, but a stretch of Lake Michigan between Allegan and Berrien Counties.

Honor Guard

The Honor Guard is a new unit formed by the Sheriff's Office. The Honor Guard consists of 6 members and will perform duties as needed at Memorial services, parades, special occasions, and funerals. All 6 officers will soon be trained in proper protocol and procedure and are looking forward to functioning in their professional capacity for their special duty.

Snowmobile Patrol

The Sheriff's Office also participates in an annual grant supplied through the Department of Natural Resources for snowmobile patrol.

The Snowmobile Division patrolled 25 (30) hours, made 211 (127) contacts, issued 3 (2) citations, gave 25 (31) verbal warnings, and investigated 2 (1) complaints and one (1) snowmobile crash.

An annual DNR grant provides overtime funds, officer equipment, and two snow machines for patrol.

Both of these programs are 75% funded by DNR grants which has not increased in over 8 years, which the services provided, has. As a county we need to pursue more funding especially with the addition of linear parks under our jurisdiction.

Because of the potential threat to our nuclear power plant and the inclusion of the Kal Haven/Hartford parks we will attempt to find funding through the Office of Domestic preparedness for 2 ATV’s enhancing our ability to respond to events.

Mounted Division

The Van Buren County Mounted Division was formed in 1964. Click here to view their page and information on membership.

Marine Division

In 2005 the Marine Division was very active on the inland lakes, 13 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Black River Harbor in South Haven, which has over 1,700 boat slips. Lake patrol hours totaled 2,123 (1950) hours and made 5,245 (5308) contacts. 158 (143) citations were written and 1,302 (1256) warnings were given and 42 (65) complaints were submitted and policed 6 (9) watercraft crashes.

We will continue to increase our inland lake patrols and our most pressing issue was the lack of state funding over the past two years. However, we were able to purchase a new 17’ patrol boat for the Black River and will shortly purchase another new 17’ patrol boat for inland lakes. Both of these vessels will also assist Dive Team operations.

The 2005 Marine Officers taught 10 boating safety classes with 321 students completing the course successfully. They also inspected 15 boat liveries through the county and spent 4 hours on search and rescue operations.

The Sheriff's Office also has a Marine Patrol Division. Click to learn more!

Animal Control

Last year was the first full year of the Animal Control Division under our supervision. We could not locate workload data from previous years to compare activities, however based from input on a long term employee and revenue generated on an off licensing year all indications tell us it was exceptionally busy. Officers responded to 1,068 dogs at large calls; assisted local agencies 69 times; 169 animal cruelty complaints; 359 misdemeanor dog law violations; completed 585 follow up investigations and wrote 319 citations.
The kennel operation received 931 dogs with 233 returned to their owners and 80 adopted. Because of our strong relationship with AlVan and other animal survivor groups we were able to place another 169 animals with them. I can say this never occurred in the past.

Additionally, we have expanded the enforcement and kennel operations to 7 days per week to be more responsive to our citizen needs.