Brown joins Sheriff's department

Mike Brown, a native of Chamberlain, S.D., recently began work as Eddy County's latest sheriff's deputy.

Brown is filling the position left open by Christopher Bittmann, who took a job with the Carrington Police Department last month.

This is Brown's first position as an officer of the law, but even though he's fresh out of the academy, the 32-year-old has plenty of life experience.

After his time with the Minnesota Army National Guard, which included a deployment to Iraq in 2010-11, Brown spent 10 years working for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Brown believes the life experience he's built over the years will go a long way towards building a relationship with Eddy County residents.

"It's not necessarily about the police experience 100 percent," said Brown. "It might be a little bit more about the life experience too, as far as how to treat people and just have a conversation with someone, instead of coming in all hot-headed and trying to throw around your weight."

Brown's journey into law enforcement began shortly after he and his wife moved to Harvey in 2019. There, he continued his work for CPR, but eventually decided it was time to make a change.

"It's something I've always wanted to do," said Brown on going into law enforcement. "... To me a lot of things are going the way they shouldn't be handled, and I've always wanted to take a path to help people."

Brown added that he comes from a family of police officers, and that he's proud to join his brother as they both follow in their father's footsteps, who is now retired after a long career in law enforcement.

Brown graduated from the Lake Region State College satellite academy in West Fargo, where he scored among the top of his class. But with the classroom behind him, he's now looking forward to helping the residents of Eddy County.

"Getting out there and helping people," said Brown on what he's aiming to accomplish with the Eddy County Sheriff's Office.

He added that a community's support for their law enforcement was a big consideration when he was looking for somewhere to start his law enforcement career, and that maintaining that support would be another goal of his.

"We have the support of the community here," he said, "so I want to keep that relationship, which can be tough."

Eddy County Sheriff, Paul Lies, said he's hopeful the community and his new deputy will get along moving forward.

"He's a very personable individual, so I'm hoping he fits in well with the community," said Lies.