(Editor’s note: National Police Week is being observed from May 10-16, 2026).

After graduating from West Marshall High School in 2020 and briefly playing college football at Simpson, Brian Morrison — initially, at least — struggled to find his footing and settle on a career path, trying out a few different things and living a few different places. Ultimately, however, it was law enforcement that proved to be his calling, and less than three years into his tenure, Officer Morrison has been recognized as the 2025 Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) Employee of the Year.

Once he had decided the campus politics and COVID restrictions at the time weren’t for him, Morrison, 24, enrolled in power line school at Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon and eventually found employment in Greenfield, where he joined the volunteer fire department and befriended an Adair County deputy who suggested that he might be a good fit and explained the process of going through the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA).

Being a cop “sounded cool,” and in order to make it happen, Morrison returned to Marshall County before he was officially hired by the MPD in August of 2023 and subsequently went to the academy, graduating four months later and starting on patrol just a few days after that. Because of his local connections, a job in Marshalltown was particularly appealing, and a friend who’s now a state trooper pushed for him to come here.

“Being able to look back on where I was even a year or two years ago and seeing, just, the growth on how I do the job now where, like, I didn’t know anything, and now look at the things I’m doing, working some complex cases. That’s pretty cool,” he said. “I enjoy that part of the job where I’ll just be working and I’ll get assigned to a call that ends up being more of a high profile type of case. And I’ve enjoyed being able to help work those cases with the detectives and seeing the results come from that.”

Looking forward, Morrison is definitely interested in moving into a detective role or even becoming a sergeant someday, and he’s already developed a strong passion for investigations.

“I kind of enjoy where I’m at right now. I’m still learning, fairly new still, but I’ve learned and gained a lot of experience in just a short amount of time. It’s fun to be able to apply that,” he said. “I just enjoy the proactiveness of the job, being able to get into stuff and look for stuff and be out on the street.”

Morrison and his wife Molly, who are expecting their first child later this year, currently reside in Gladbrook, and she recently became a Grundy County 911 dispatcher. And now that he’s settled into his own role and already received the department’s highest honor from his peers, Brian couldn’t see himself anywhere else.

“I don’t have any desire to leave the PD or law enforcement in general. After kind of bouncing and trying to figure out what I wanted to do after high school and it was like ‘Oh, this is what I’ll do.’ But here we are now, and since being in this job, I don’t think I could do anything else,” he said.

The award, he added, makes him feel good about his decision to become a police officer and is a testament to the support he receives from his coworkers. And the size of Marshalltown and its police department provide plenty of opportunity to handle a wide variety of calls and build bonds with colleagues.

“You know everybody. You can go to anybody for any reason, and it’s nice when you’re out on the street. You can count on these guys. They’re gonna be there, and there’s a lot of go-getters around here,” Morrison said. “If you’re looking to become a cop and you want to learn, the best way to do that is just to become proactive. And I think we offer that here with a lot of the other officers that are leading by example in that manner.”

With so much of his career still ahead of him, the sky is the limit for Morrison, and his boss, MPD Chief Chris Jones, couldn’t agree more.

“Younger officers, they take some time to develop. They usually have an area that they like to specialize in and kind of concentrate on. Sometimes you hire people that like to focus on traffic enforcement. Some people like investigations and some people like community service events,” Jones said. “Really, we try to instill in our officers (that) it’s important to be strong in all of those areas, but it does take some initiative for those staff members to get experience in all those areas. And it’s one thing that Brian has just immediately done, and it seems like he wants to embrace the law enforcement field and his career and learn everything that he can, and he’s taking it all in at a very fast rate. And he’s doing it the right way.”

The chief also praised Morrison’s commitment and tenacity in pursuing investigations and described him as “self-motivated.”

“He knows what he needs to learn to be better, and if there is something he needs to work on, he’ll reach out to anyone and ask questions. And it’s hard not to just enjoy speaking with him,” Jones said.

The midsize nature of the MPD, according to Jones, allows officers to decide which direction they want to take their careers, and they also make the decision on whether to simply do what’s expected of them or go above and beyond the call of duty. Thus far, Morrison is taking the latter route, and it’s already paying dividends.

“Usually, what I tell people at the end of the story is when you get to the point towards the end of your law enforcement career, are you gonna be satisfied with what you have done, and did you leave anything on the table? And right now, Brian is doing everything that he can not to leave anything on the table at the end of the day,” Jones said. “And hopefully as he continues his career and he gets to be in a situation where you have 30 plus years like me and you’re looking at your retirement, you can walk away being completely satisfied that you did everything you could while you had an opportunity. Because you can’t do it forever.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.