Detective David Wagner retired from the Brookline Police Department on Wednesday, Aug. 19, closing out a 25-year career that included overseeing the flow of thousands of pieces of evidence and property through the department each year.
Wagner held the Evidence/Property detective role within the Detective Division, a unit of 18 detectives responsible for follow-up investigation of all crimes, intelligence analysis, forensic examination and evidence management, according to the department's website. The website lists the unit's work as tracking drugs, firearms, recovered property and general evidence.
That is a lot of physical material moving through one person's hands.
Before joining Brookline Police, Wagner spent more than 12 years as a Norfolk County Sheriff's deputy, the department said on its Facebook page. Combined with his quarter-century in Brookline, Wagner's law enforcement career spanned more than 37 years.
His departure marks the second notable retirement from the department this year. Detective Lieutenant Michael McCarthy retired in January after 39 years of service, a career that overlapped with Wagner's for more than two decades. The department has now lost a combined 64 years of institutional experience in a single calendar year.
No successor has been named for the Evidence/Property detective position. The Detective Division, which handles everything from forensic casework to intelligence analysis, continues to operate with its remaining staff.
