Debra Preus named MCC’s Police Officer of the Year
By Tim Hadac
Managing Editor
By Tim Hadac
Managing Editor
Southwest Chicago Post
CPD Officer Debra Preus is modest when she describes what she does as an “older adults liaison” member of the Eighth District CAPS office.
She talks about attending meetings, calling bingo at senior centers and so forth.
But talk to the men and women she serves, and you may hear a different story.
“Officer Preus may have saved my life,” says one elderly woman in the Midway area, who asks that her name be withheld because she’s embarrassed about almost being outwitted by a pair of scammers.
“A friend of mine heard Officer Preus speak at a community meeting a few years ago,” the woman recalls. “She gave out some advice on how to avoid getting scammed by these door-to-door con artists. My friend shared that advice with me. Sure enough, a week later some guy is ringing my front doorbell. I went to answer. He said he was with the Water Department and he and this other guy needed to go down to my basement to check out some sort of emergency situation.
“Well, both of these men had badges and were wearing safety vests that said Water Dept. on the back,” she adds. “Normally, I would have let them in. But then I thought about what Officer Preus told my friend, so I told these two guys to wait outside while I called 911 to have police verify their identity.
“When they heard that, these two guys took off and I thought, ‘Aha, con artists.’ I also felt stupid because I almost fell for their lies. Then two weeks later, I read in the paper about two guys using that same scam to get into an elderly man’s house. They stole thousands of dollars’ worth of valuables from the home; but on top of that, they beat the man so bad, he was hospitalized in critical condition. That could have been me, I thought.”
That’s the kind of important work Officer Preus does, and it’s one reason why she has been named the Midway Chamber of Commerce’s 2025 Police Officer of the Year.
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| Officer Debra Preus celebrates the holidays with SW Side seniors. |
She learned the news in early December. “It’s a pleasant surprise. It’s an honor,” she says.
Officer Preus is a Southwest Side native. She grew up in Ashburn, attending Ashburn Lutheran School before going on to Queen of Peace High School, where she graduated in 1988. She currently calls Garfield Ridge home.
A daughter of a Chicago firefighter, she says she “always wanted to be a first responder.”
“The opportunity to serve is there, plus no two days are quite the same. You’re not going to an office, and you won’t be bored.”
In the early 1990s, she trained to be an EMT and worked for about seven years with Superior Ambulance.
She took the CPD exam in 2001 and joined the force later that year. She was initially assigned to the 17th District on the North Side, but later transferred to 8 in 2010, where she has been ever since.
She has served seniors (age 60 and up) from the CAPS Office for about six years.
“It’s a rewarding job,” Officer Preus says. “It really is about helping people. It may sound corny, but it’s about making a difference in people’s lives. As police officers, we often encounter people who are having a horrible day. In whatever way we can, we help them at least get to the next step towards feeling better, or at least we comfort them.
“This was especially clear during COVID,” she continues. “Many seniors don’t have social media access to make connections, so there was much more of a sense of isolation. The gatherings we had—using appropriate precautions, of course—made quite a difference for the seniors we served. That was great for them. It felt good to give them that opportunity.”
The 2025 Police Officer of the Year Award will be presented at the Midway Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner-dance, set for Friday, Jan. 9 at Mayfield Banquets.
Among those attending will be MCC Board of Directors member Al Cacciottolo, who nominated Preus.
“[Officer Preus] has been awesome. She’s at all our Chamber meetings and Garfield Ridge Neighborhood Watch meetings,” he says. “She’s always cheerful, open, ready to lend a hand, a great representative of the Eighth District Police.
“She’s a perfect example of what a police officer ought to be. Not a lot of officers can do what she does as effectively as she does. She is outstanding at one-on-one interactions after our meetings.
“She has a genuinely good personality, and I think the people she serves believe in her,” Cacciottolo concludes. “When seniors talk to her, they’re comfortable. It’s like they’re talking to their daughter or granddaughter. They have a special connection with her. She makes the community a better place, day in and day out.”
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