Officer of the Year recognition was given to Manteca Police detective Steve Beermann for making a difference in child abuse and intervention by the county Children’s Services Coordinating Commission.

With the department since 1996, Officer Beermann has handled the child sexual abuse case load as the primary officer from January of 2005 to January of this year. He has been assigned to the detective unit since 2003.

During that period he has handled over 160 sexual assault cases with convictions that saw offenders sentenced to a total of 1,000 years in prison. In 2010 alone, he worked four large cases that resulted in four jury trials.

The first jury trial last year resulted in a conviction that brought a 78-year-to-life sentence. The second jury trial ended with a hung jury. The suspect in the third trial was given a 250-year-to-life sentence and the fourth was to retry the hung jury resulting in a guilty verdict sending the suspect to prison for 12 years.

“The hardest ones to handle are the shaken babies – whether they are deceased or not,” Beermann said. “It’s difficult to understand why people would harm children when they have no ability to defend themselves or to tell anyone about it.”

Beermann recently cycled out of the detective unit and is now working as a patrol officer on the streets of Manteca.