Full Notification

Petaluma Police Department
For Immediate Release
Date Issued: January 18, 2021
Issued by: Jennifer Pritchard, Community Engagement Liaison
707-778-4458, [email protected]

We are pleased to announce Senior Officer Danny Miller retired effective December 31, 2021.  Officer Miller began his distinguished career on September 29, 1997.  Over his 24-year career he served honorably in numerous assignments including Patrol, Gang Enforcement, Crisis Negotiator, School Resource Officer, and Mental Health Outreach.

In each and every assignment, Senior Officer Miller has been recognized by community members, peers, and supervisors for his performance. While still in the field-training program in the Patrol Services Division, he received his first commendation for solving a residential burglary and recovering the victim’s stolen property. He balanced his crime fighting efforts with his concern for traffic safety and received recognition for his traffic safety efforts in his second year in Patrol.

In 2001, Senior Officer Miller recognized the importance of engaging our youth and began one of his greatest legacy contributions to the organization when he volunteered to help the Petaluma City Schools develop a School Safety Plan.  Over the rest of his career he would assume leadership responsibilities with our youth in the community where he mentored students in academics and sports.

Due to his continuous and never-ending investments in our youth, Senior Officer Miller was selected to be a School Resource Officer, an assignment that would be his most significant accomplishment.  Known as “Coach” more than Officer Miller, he developed relationships with students that allowed him to positively influence their lives.  His expertise as a Gang Enforcement Officer allowed him the opportunity to identify and deter early recruitment into criminal street gangs, a benefit of the program that would help the Police Department keep gang activity and related crime from taking hold in our City.   Senior Officer Miller’s primary role was campus safety, but an effective SRO engaged all students and developed a positive relationship.  He specifically reached out to struggling youth and engaged them in sporting activities, even volunteering his own time to coach, take youth trips to local camps and on river rafting excursions that emphasized life skills, leadership, and decision making.  He was an active participant in Project Tuff and the Petaluma City Schools Attendance Review Board (SARB).

In his SRO assignment he would be recognized by the Petaluma City Schools and Sonoma County Office of Education for his efforts to combat tobacco and alcohol use on school campus’ and received the Tobacco and Alcohol Prevention Award.

As an SRO, Senior Officer Miller received a formal commendation from the mother of student who said he was “phenomenal” when he showed professional, consistent, and with genuine concern for her son and her family.  He would also be recognized for peacefully resolving the mental health crisis of a community member who was barricaded and threatening violence until Senior Officer Miller recognized him as a former student and called him by his first name.  The young man responded, “Coach!” and the incident was resolved peacefully and the man received needed mental health services instead of jail.

One of Senior Officer Miller’s greatest strengths was his ability to connect and relate to people.  Emotional intelligence and good interpersonal skills are essential to a peace officer’s success.  The Department recognized these skills and appointed Senior Officer Miller to the Crisis Response Unit as a Crisis Negotiator where he served most of his career.  His training and experience resulted in his selection to the position of Team Leader where he served until his retirement.

Senior Officer Miller did not limit his focus to our youth when helping those with the greatest need in our community.  Recognizing the rise in mental health calls and the unsheltered, Senior Officer Miller became a Mental Health Outreach Officer on his own.  He helped organize monthly meeting with mental health and homeless outreach service providers in the Police Department where everyone could come together to provide the services necessary to address, and more importantly prevent people in crisis.  More importantly, he and his beat partner Senior Officer Baseman, initiated these efforts more than fifteen years ago before these issues became what they are today.  His vision and leadership in this area significantly impacted the quality of life for so many community members. As an original founder of the Petaluma Sober Circle Program to address serial inebriants, Senior Officer Miller recognized the importance of addressing teen alcohol abuse as an early intervention to prevent future serial inebriants.  He developed a process that provided students and parents with needed resources to address issues immediately when detected.   

As mentioned previously his accomplishments and recognitions came in steadily throughout his career.  I had the pleasure to review the hundreds of commendations in his personnel file and want to share some of Senior Officer Miller’s exemplary performance.

In October 2001 Senior Officer Miller and Officer Patti Neri responded to a call of two armed suspects near a school.  When they arrived they were both victims of gunfire and both would be recognized for their bravery and actions at the scene.

Senior Officer Miller was involved in numerous life saving efforts throughout his career.  In June 2004, he received a life saving award when he responded to a 911 call of a 9-month-old child not breathing.  Arriving within one minute of the call he began rescue breathing and he resuscitated the child before paramedics arrived.  The ER doctor later told his supervisor that his efforts saved the life of the infant.

In September 2005, Senior Officer Miller was on the Casa Grande High School campus when a bomb was detonated.  He was formally recognized for his rapid response, calm under stressful circumstances as he led the evacuation, secured the scene, and ultimately identified the student suspects resulting in their arrest.

In December 2006, Senior Officer Miller supported the “To Catch A Predator Operation” targeting suspects engaged in attempted sexual assaults of juveniles that resulting in 29 arrests.

Senior Officer Miller was the recipient of three (3) Unit Citations. The first resulted from his efforts to investigate a Threat of and Active Shooter at a local high school campus on the 18^th anniversary of the Columbine Shooting.  Senior Officer Miller was able to identify the suspect and prevent any violence.  The second occurred in October 2017 when he responded to another emergency call for an infant not breathing.  Again, arriving within a minute of the call, he was handed a small child who was blue and not breathing.  Recognizing the paramedic unit was delayed, he transported the child immediately to Petaluma Valley Emergency Department where life saving efforts saved the child.  The third Unit Citation came in March 2016 when Senior Officer Miller and his team responded to a series of critical events within months.  The events included the tragic death of a child resulting in manslaughter charges, response and apprehension of kidnapping suspects that fled from a pursued vehicle and suspect discarding a firearm in a creek near a school (Senior Officer Miller would later enter the creek flowing with rainwater to locate and recover the firearm), and their response to auto theft suspects resulting in two pursuits at the same time.

While no other officer in the Department has received three Unit Citations, Senior Officer Miller’s outstanding performance did not stop there as he received the Department’s Distinguished Service Medal twice during his career.  In 2009 he received the award for his life saving efforts to respond to a suicide attempt by hanging.  Again his quick response from within his beat resulted in him finding the victim and taking quick action to save their life.  In January of 2016, he responded to the Sheraton Hotel where he found an unresponsive overdose subject not breathing and without a pulse.  He and his teammates acted quickly with life saving efforts which ultimately saved a life.

Senior Officer Miller embraced community policing and recognized his noble calling to serve and help others through community engagement.  He developed the now annual Shop with a Cop program to help families and youth in need during the holiday season.  He supported the Annual Community Crisis Negotiations Golf Tournament for thirteen years raising funds to support the team with training and equipment.  One of many examples of care and compassion for community members occurred when he met a local youth in town in need.  Realizing the young man needed new shoes, he used his own funds to purchase the child a pair of shoes.  Throughout his career he supported the Every 15 Minutes Program, and Leadership Petaluma Public Safety Day to mention a few.

Senior Officer Miller consistently demonstrated our values of leadership, professionalism, teamwork, organizational excellence, community, and a winning attitude throughout his career and we will miss him dearly from our ranks.  Please join me in thanking Senior Officer Miller for his years of sacrifice and selfless service to our community and congratulating him on his well-deserved retirement.