Meritorious Service Award · 2021

For more than nine years, Officer Keywon Brown served the Fond du Lac Police Department not only as a police officer, but as a computer forensic specialist whose work took him into some of the most difficult and disturbing investigations faced by law enforcement.

As technology became increasingly intertwined with criminal activity, Officer Brown recognized that protecting the community required more than traditional investigative methods. It required understanding the digital evidence that could exist inside a phone, computer, hard drive, surveillance system, or other electronic device.

He dedicated himself to that work.

Officer Brown completed the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists' Basic Computer Forensics Examiner training, a rigorous 76-hour program conducted over two consecutive weeks. The training provided foundational and advanced instruction in the examination and analysis of digital evidence.

For more than nine years, Officer Brown applied those skills to investigations throughout the Fond du Lac community. His forensic work included child exploitation investigations, homicide investigations, drug investigations and other serious criminal cases. He examined cellular telephones and computers, recovered digital evidence, analyzed electronic storage devices and worked with digital video evidence, including DVR hard drives where critical evidence was not readily accessible through conventional methods.

But among the cases that demonstrated the importance of that work most clearly were investigations involving the exploitation of children.

Officer Brown worked tirelessly on cases involving the possession, distribution and production of child sexual abuse material. These investigations were often painstaking and required investigators to work through enormous amounts of digital information while understanding that somewhere inside that data could be the evidence necessary to identify an offender, establish a pattern of conduct or protect a child from further victimization.

One investigation began after an Internet Protocol address associated with a victim was traced back to the City of Fond du Lac. The investigation involved cooperation with Homeland Security, and Officer Brown ultimately took a leading role in the local digital investigation.

As the investigation developed, investigators identified Lydell M. Lee as an individual connected to the online grooming of a child. Lee was incarcerated at the time, adding another layer of complexity to an already difficult investigation.

A device believed to be associated with Lee was located at the child's residence. Following a consensual forensic examination, Officer Brown discovered numerous images depicting child sexual abuse material concealed within a file-vault application on the device.

The significance of the discovery went beyond the images themselves.

The material recovered from the device was not of the child who was the focus of the original investigation. However, Officer Brown continued examining the digital evidence, following the information wherever it led. His examination uncovered communications and other digital evidence that provided investigators with additional insight into Lee's conduct and his interactions with others.

The investigation ultimately contributed to criminal charges against Lee in Fond du Lac County.

Public court records confirm that Lee was charged with 14 counts of possession of child pornography. As part of a negotiated plea agreement, he entered no-contest pleas to three counts. The remaining 11 counts were dismissed but read into the record. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals later noted that the factual basis for the pleas included multiple images of children found on Lee's phone.

Lee was sentenced to three years of initial confinement and five years of extended supervision on each of the three counts, with one count ordered consecutively and another concurrently. The resulting sentence included six years of initial confinement and eight years of extended supervision, along with lifetime sex-offender registration.

For Officer Brown, however, the significance of the investigation was never measured simply by the number of charges or the length of a sentence.

The importance was in the child who might be safer because the investigation was completed.

It was in the evidence that might otherwise have remained hidden.

It was in the digital trail that someone had attempted to conceal.

And it was in the knowledge that painstaking forensic work could turn information buried inside an electronic device into evidence capable of holding an offender accountable.

That case represented only one part of Officer Brown's more than nine years as a computer forensic specialist. Throughout his tenure, he provided digital forensic assistance to numerous investigators and agencies, working cases ranging from child exploitation to homicide and narcotics investigations.

His role required patience, technical knowledge, investigative instinct and an understanding that digital evidence could be the difference between an unanswered question and a successful investigation.

For more than nine years, Officer Brown carried that responsibility.

He worked behind the scenes, often without recognition from the public, examining devices and data long after the initial police response had ended. While other investigators were following leads in the field, Officer Brown was often sitting behind a computer, reconstructing digital activity, recovering deleted or hidden information, examining communications and searching for the evidence that could move an investigation forward.

His work demonstrated an important truth about modern policing: sometimes protecting the community does not happen on the street. Sometimes it happens one file, one device and one piece of digital evidence at a time.

At the conclusion of his more than nine-year tenure as a computer forensic specialist, the Fond du Lac Police Department recognized Officer Keywon Brown's contributions with the Meritorious Service Award.

The award represented more than recognition for technical expertise.

It recognized years of specialized service, countless hours of investigative work and a commitment to using an evolving technology to protect the people of Fond du Lac.

Most importantly, it recognized a commitment to protecting children.

Officer Brown's work in computer forensics placed him at the intersection of technology, investigation and public safety. He took information that could easily be overlooked, hidden or misunderstood and turned it into evidence.

For more than nine years, he quietly performed that work for the Fond du Lac Police Department.

And in doing so, he helped give investigators answers, helped bring offenders to justice and, in some cases, helped give vulnerable children a greater measure of safety.