INDIANAPOLIS — A Northeast Indiana state police captain has been awarded for his years of service

Indiana State Police Superintendent Douglas G. Carter presented Captain Kevin Smith with a medallion for his 35 years of service with the department.

Smith currently serves as the Area II Commander for the Enforcement Division, where he oversees the field operations for the enforcement personnel and command staff assigned to the Bremen, Fort Wayne and Indiana Toll Road posts.

Smith graduated with the 45th Indiana State Police Recruit Academy on Dec. 19, 1987. His first assignment was to the Toll Road Post where he patrolled the stretch of I-80/90 through LaGrange and Steuben Counties.

In 1990, Smith transferred to the Fort Wayne Post and assigned patrol duties in Steuben County.
He transferred to the Laboratory Division in 1995 as a crime scene technician for two years and earned a bachelor degree in criminal justice from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis in 1996.

In 2005, he was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Division where he served as a detective over next 10 years.

In 2016 Smith would be promoted to the rank of first sergeant as the District Investigative Commander at the Fort Wayne Post. Then in December of 2018 he was appointed into his current role as the commander of Area II operations.

In October of 2015, he was awarded the department’s Meritorious Service Award for his investigative efforts into a cold case homicide from 1989 in which the suspect was ultimately located in Bangladesh and finally arrested in India.

That suspect, Mahfuz Huq, was extradited back to Indiana in 2013 and he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Smith was also awarded the Meritorious Service Award in October of 2018 for his work on the 1988 April Tinsley homicide case, which was solved in July of 2018, 30 years after the crime was committed.

Smith and his family are residents of Steuben County.