InTucker Magazine

On the Beat with Lt. Schoeppner – October 2019

Lt. D.G. Schoeppner is Tucker’s liaison to the DeKalb County Police Department and can be followed at facebook.com/dgschoeppner or emailed at dgschoeppner@dekalbcountyga.gov.

At the end of August, we bid happy retirement to Lt. Bernard Gailes. He had been the watch commander over Tucker Precinct’s evening watch since 2017. This month I am very happy to welcome Lt. Ariel Toledo back to Tucker Precinct to fill the role vacated by Lt. Gailes.

Lt. Toledo started his career with the DeKalb County Police back in 1997 when he graduated from the 55th Police Academy. He was assigned to the uniform division and worked the road out of Center Precinct. After two years there, we opened Tucker Precinct and Officer Toledo was assigned there to continue working the road. While at Tucker Precinct, Lt. Toledo earned a spot on the precinct COPS unit, a specialized group of officers who did mostly proactive patrol and targeted mostly high crime and drug areas.

In 2002, Lt. Toledo took a detour from law enforcement, leaving the force to care for his mother. She was battling cancer and needed the type of help that he was not able to provide while working a police officer’s schedule. Fortunately, things took a positive turn, as his mom made a recovery from her cancer and he was able to rejoin the force.

Upon returning to DeKalb, Lt. Toledo was assigned to North Precinct. While he was there, he earned his first detective assignment. He was a property crimes detective at North until he was selected to be DeKalb Police Public Information Officer in 2005.

After serving as the PIO, Lt. Toledo was promoted to Sergeant and assigned as a supervisor in the Gang Unit. This unit was primarily responsible for identifying gangs and their individual members. Then when these gang members committed crimes, the gang units assisted with using this knowledge to help with the prosecution. After the gang unit, Sgt. Toledo spent time as a uniform supervisor at North Precinct.

In 2016, Lt. Toledo got promoted to his current rank and assigned to the Background and Recruiting Unit. There he was responsible for increasing the department’s outreach to hire more officers. Under his watch the department was finally able to end the net yearly manpower loss that it had been experiencing for several years.

Lt. Toledo has accumulated a broad range of experience so far in his career with DeKalb Police. His assignments with the COPS unit, CID, the gang unit and even the background unit give him a wealth of knowledge to pass on to our younger officers. This will make us all better officers and is just one example of why I think Tucker is the best precinct in all of the DeKalb Police Department.