Two Lorain police officers will soon see a rise in the ranks and take years of law enforcement experience to lead their own group of road officers.
Former police Sgt. Michael Failing will be promoted to lieutenant, and Detective Larry Swanger will become a sergeant in the road patrol division.
Failing, 42, who was first hired by the Lorain Police Department in 1994 as a corrections officer in the city jail, later worked as a resource officer at Lorain City Schools and then worked his way up to sergeant in 2009. In this role, he’s served as the department’s crime analyst investigating burglaries and mapping crimes in the city – a position that did not exist prior to Failing’s shift to that role.
Failing reminisced on days prior to joining the department at the ripe age of 21, citing he’d always been interested in the law enforcement field. But he never imagined he’d one day see ‘Lieutenant’ etched on his badge.
‘You see the cops growing up, you think that’s a really neat thing,’ Failing said. ‘I’ve always been interested in helping people.’
Prior to the role change, Failing was often working with Chief Cel Rivera and Capt. Roger Watkins on setting up new programs to combat crime, including the CrimeStat reports program or the recent Operation iDent initiative.
Soon, he will be on the opposite end, leading a group of nine road officers who put his initiatives to practice.
‘Now, I’ll be on the other side,’ he said. ‘I’ll be the one that gets to go out and handle that. … I’ll be able to enact it and control it on my shift, and actually see it through.’
Watkins said he believes Failing will be able to carry over his ‘well-rounded’ and diverse knowledge, whether it’s from his experience as a jailor or an intelligence-led crime analyst, to the position to benefit the department.
‘His efforts have changed the way the Police Department has organized itself to combat crime and address community issues,’ Watkins noted. ‘So, I think how well-rounded he’s become in his career in law enforcement is only going to benefit the officers beneath him.’
Similar sentiments were said of colleague Swanger, 45, who will soon serve as a patrol unit sergeant overseeing his own group of 8-9 road officers.
Sgt. Mark McCoy said he has supervised Swanger for three years in the newly promoted officer’s former role, and explained Swanger is a dedicated and reliable servant.
Of Swanger’s work, McCoy remarked, ‘You can pretty much count on it getting done.’
‘He was a good team member and I hate to see him go,’ McCoy said. ‘But I think he’ll go forward and do some good things in the patrol division.’
Similar to Failing, Swanger started with the department in 1994 with a passion for law enforcement, working the roads and later becoming a basic evidence technician for crime scenes. In March 2013, he moved up to the detective division.
‘I pretty much knew, probably since the age of 5, that I was interested in that type of stuff,’ Swanger said of law enforcement. Swanger was in active military in 1987 and began his law enforcement career in 1993 as a corrections officer at the Grafton Correctional Institute before Lorain hired him a year later.
In his former role as detective, Swanger explained he enjoyed assisting in and processing evidence – tasks he’ll miss once he completely transfers to his new role.
‘I like doing casework,’ he said. ‘Being able to take a police report with no evidence, and backtracking that case to talking to witnesses … watching it go through the process – to me – was very satisfying.’
However, he said he’s excited for his primary function to be supervision, ensuring the patrolmen under his wing are efficiently and successfully performing their duties.
‘It’s a chance to give back,’ Swanger said. ‘We have a lot of young officers on the team. It’s always nice to be able to bring them up a bit.’
Failing and Swanger are currently in the midst of making the transition from their former roles and will officially move into their new positions in late December.
