MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon police officer Justin Willis received the “Award of Excellence” from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) on Tuesday afternoon in Gahanna, OH for his efforts over the past year to stop impaired driving.

MADD is an international non-profit (spanning the U.S. and Canada) that holds state offices within the United States. Willis was one of 32 patrolmen in Ohio, from all regions and departments, to win the award.

Knox County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Luke Guthrie and State Highway Patrol Trooper Jacob Dickerson (of Mount Gilead’s patrol post) won the award as well.

As of October, the deadline for officer nomination, Willis had made 13 OVI arrests in 2018. Mount Vernon Police Department Captain Scott McKnight said Willis has been an invaluable piece to the department in many ways, and that this award was well-earned.

“He’s achieved a lot throughout his career, he’s prospering on a continuous basis and he’s a good officer for the Mount Vernon Police Department,” McKnight said of Willis. “He’s been quite an asset, along with others.”

McKnight said Willis’s arrest total is impressive because of the difficulty involved in getting an indictment on an OVI charge.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” McKnight said. “OVIs take a lot of training, technique, court time and paperwork to actually get indictments on these type of things.”

Willis was appointed to the Mount Vernon Police Department’s Patrol Division in June 2016. Since then, he has received two accomodation awards from the department, which honored his “excellence in service in 2017,” McKnight said. While Willis’s OVI arrest total leads the department, he is also heavily involved in the department’s drug enforcement efforts.

“Patrolman Willis is very self-motivated and always striving to better himself as an officer through additional training and schools,” McKnight added.

There have been 12 fatal crashes in Knox County in 2018. McKnight said that several of those were alcohol-related, and could have resulted in a higher death toll had they not been single-car crashes. He said that the work of Willis and other nighttime officers is crucial to keeping the streets safe, and that the department is fully invested in cracking down on drunk driving.

“It saves lives,” McKnight said. “You know, there’s a lot of crashes that transpire from that – that involve alcohol-related crashes… So getting these individuals off the roadway is a top priority for the City of Mount Vernon.”

McKnight himself won MADD’s annual award years ago. He said “five or six” MVPD officers have won the award over the years, with Willis being the latest. Departments from across the state nominate officers for consideration, and MADD’s board reviews each nominee’s application and selects the winners.

“Not everybody gets picked for it,” said McKnight, noting the significance of the honor.

Speaking on behalf of the department, McKnight thanked the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and State Highway Patrol for their assistance in tracking down impaired drivers.