The Washington Police Department is quite literally a family with multiple sets of relatives who’ve chosen to serve the community together.
Lieutenant Lyle Martin Hansen is the longest-serving officer on staff and the father of patrol officer Ethan Hansen. Lyle is a lifelong resident of Washington who looked up to his father, Lyle Edward Hansen, a 38-year veteran of Iowa State Patrol. Lyle has served with Washington police for 37 years, and his brother Matt works for Iowa State Patrol in Waterloo. The law enforcement tradition rubbed off on Ethan, who decided to set forth on the path in his senior year of high school. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa studying criminal justice, interned in Washington, and then became a certified officer while working for the Anamosa Police Department. Only four months later Ethan applied for a job opening in Washington, eager to move back and serve his hometown.
As the Hansens currently make up one-sixth of the department, Lyle says he and Ethan will occasionally work together, “We have a policy however that I do not directly supervise Ethan. I don’t okay any of his reports. He can come to me for advice but not for structure as far as what he should and shouldn’t do. But other than that we work together, we work well. The public has sometimes put it together that we’re related, sometimes it doesn’t make any difference, but I think it goes well.”
Ethan has worked for Washington for about two years, and in that time he has received a commendation from Chief Jim Lester for rescuing a person from a vehicle fire on July 6, 2020. Ethan shares what it’s like serving alongside his father, “It is nice working with him, because like he said growing up, you know what one’s thinking before he does it. So you have that kind of telepathy, if you will, of this is what he’s going to do next. So you can play off of each other just to help in certain tense situations. It helps a lot better on traffic stops that are unpredictable. It always helps to have another mind that you know what he’s thinking.”
The Hansens are one of three families represented in the department, with brothers Lieutenant Shamus Altenhofen and Sergeant Benjamin Altenhofen, and Patrol Officer/K9 Handler Eric Kephart and his brother Officer Aaron Kephart, who joined this past January. You can hear more from the Hansens during today’s edition of the KCII Public Safety Special Edition News Magazine at 1 and 6 p.m. Thursday and by visiting the On Demand page by clicking on the Listen Live button at kciiradio.com.