AGFC game warden wins regional honor

MONTICELLO — Game Warden Austin Powell keeps racking up major honors for his enforcement work for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, but he knows he doesn’t do that work alone.

“There’s no way any one person could win any award like this by himself,” Powell said of being named the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 2024 Robert M. Brantly Law Enforcement Officer of the Year earlier this month in Augusta, Georgia. The honor followed up winning the AGFC’s Monty Carmikle Officer of the Year Award in late July. Also, on Dec. 5, he turned 27 years old.

“There are so many other people that help with every case,” Powell said, explaining, “Maybe somebody is better at interviewing and knows these people and can relate to them better than you can. You can’t put a price tag on the kind of help you get on a case. For me on some cases, (game wardens) Aaron Dillard and Keith Cardin will be on interview and those guys could talk to a brick wall and get information. They just have the gift of gab.”

Powell is the fourth AGFC game warden to win the SEAFWA honor, following Pat Fitts in 2003, Michael Neal in 2010 and Cpl. S.M. “Mac” Davis in 2020. The SEAFWA award honors a law enforcement officer among the 15 states in the organization who is engaged with the public and within his or her agency and seeks opportunities to educate and inform; demonstrates the willingness to go beyond the call of duty by doing more than others expect and continually seeks to improve efficiency on the job; and portrays a contagious, positive perspective, and demonstrates standards of excellence and professionalism.

Powell, as the Carmikle winner representing Arkansas at the annual conference (which had been postponed from earlier in the fall by consecutive hurricanes in the Southeast U.S.) was joined by Major Steve Paul, an assistant chief in the AGFC Enforcement Division, and Lt. John Paul Greer from the Monticello office, where Powell is based.

“I had no clue that I was going to win that award, when you combine all these other 14 states, and they’re all officers of the year from their states with the statistics and cases made across the U.S. To say I was surprised would be an understatement,” Powell said

A fellow wildlife officer from Louisiana sitting next to Paul as the award winner was being announced began congratulating him while the moment washed over the shocked Powell. “It is just a really special feeling,” he recalled, “something you don’t expect, especially that early in your career. It was just such an awesome feeling to experience.”

Powell, reflecting in mid-December back home to winning the award, said he believed the AGFC Enforcement Division’s use of shotshell forensics, DNA analysis and drone technology factored in the honor going his way.

“They read short biographies about everybody and what they did, but they don’t get into specific cases,” he said. “The other cases maybe were more ‘caught in the act’ arrests. Working and making cases and using resources may have set it apart.”

For Powell, shotshell forensics helped make an interstate case involving Mississippi poachers harvesting turkeys out of season on a Mississippi River island within Arkansas; DNA analysis was critical in another turkey case where Powell and investigators were able to take blood off a knife and compare it to the carcass of a turkey, getting a match to prove the suspect had illegally taken the bird. As for the AGFC’s drone, Powell said, “We’ve used it quite a bit, but one really big one was a waterfowl case” in which Powell and AGFC Enforcement documented through photos and video illegal crop manipulation over several months for duck hunting.

Noting more team involvement in the later case, Powell credited Lt. Phillip Livingston in the Pine Bluff office with his work.

Powell is also a K-9 handler in the division, working cases with yellow Labrador Annie since last January. “She’s the newest dog in the agency, though we just advertised for a new (K-9 handler) position. We have the dog, Lainey, and we’re just looking for her handler.”

With Annie, Powell says they’ve already tracked felons and used her skills for backtracking on WMAs to find bait. “I helped the Arkansas State Police several times with article searches with her. Her first case was a double-homicide in McGehee where she found evidence.”

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CUTLINES:

GAME WARDEN AND K9
AGFC Game Warden Austin Powell works with K9 Annie out of the AGFC’s Monticello Regional Office. Photo courtesy Austin Powell.

THREE MEN WITH AWARDS
AGFC Director Austin Booth (left) and AGFC Enforcement Chief Col. Brad Young presented Powell the Monty Carmikle Arkansas Game Warden of the Year Award earlier this year. AGFC photo by Mike Wintroath.