Jeff Lange will begin work as Wiscasset’s new police chief May 23.
Wiscasset has named its next police chief. Jeff Lange, interim chief of the Paris Police Department in Paris, Maine, will head the Wiscasset Police Department beginning May 23, Town Manager Marian Anderson said.
Lange has extensive experience in law enforcement and the fire service, and has worked extensively with the military. His career in public safety began in 1989 when he served as a volunteer firefighter for a small community in New Jersey, a corrections officer, and a reserve police officer, according to a press release from Anderson.
In 1996, Lange went to work for the Columbus Police Department in Columbus, N.J., where he worked as a senior patrol officer, field training officer, emergency operations officer, state-certified basic instructor, and defensive tactics instructor.
He was promoted to the department’s elite detective division and worked in the special victim’s unit, where he focused on sexual assaults, kidnappings, and abductions, according to the press release.
In 2008, Lange accepted a position with the Department of Defense as a law enforcement professional; he has served three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lange was initially assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, where he worked as a mentor to the chief of the Afghan National Police and the leadership of the Afghan Border Police.
After a tour in Afghanistan, he deployed to Iraq where he worked with the 10th Mountain Division as chief of the Prosecution Task Force for Eastern Baghdad. On his third tour, Lange served once again in Afghanistan as a counter improvised explosive device instructor. He also helped prepare prosecution packets on alleged terrorists and testified in Afghanistan’s nascent court system as a subject matter expert, according to the press release.
Between tours, Lange served as a mentor in the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency targeting program, which trained Army intelligence and targeting officers who are charged with ferreting out terrorist networks.
In 2013, Lange returned to law enforcement and came to Maine as a detective sergeant for the Paris Police Department. He was soon promoted to lieutenant and since April 2015 has served as the department’s interim police chief, according to the press release.
