Lead Police Officer - Sergeant

Lead Police Officer - Sergeant

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Fort Harrison, Montana, Missoula, Montana

Salary Range: $61885 - $80455 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Police Service (PS). The mission of the PS is to serve and protect Veterans, patients, employees, contractors, volunteers, affiliates, visitors, and others who frequent VA facilities. Safety and security are paramount to ensuring that the VA successfully serve and honor the men and women who are America's Veterans.

Major Duties:

• Duties for this position include, but are not limited to the following: Leads a team of Police Officers and other administrative staff. Directs day-to-day lead and non-lead policing assignments. Provides staff guidance on how to preserve what is needed for crime scenes. Leads and initiates investigative contacts/stops. Assigns, distributes, reviews, approves and disapproves employees' assignments. Monitors and reviews the status/progress of the work and makes workload adjustments to ensure the workload is balanced. Provides information/feedback to the supervisor concerning promotions, reassignment, recognition of outstanding performance, and personnel needs. Resolves simple, informal complaints of employees and refers more complex complaints to the supervisor. Receives, reviews and revises reports from staff, before forwarding to the supervisor for final review. Determines whether situations are criminal or civil and takes appropriate legal steps for each crime committed. Interviews witnesses and other persons involved, determines whether facts warrant an arrest or lesser action. Keeps abreast of policing best practices, the latest policing technology, and the latest criminal and policing laws, rules, and regulations to provide advice and guidance as needed. Provide assistance to citizens in emergencies, including the protection of civil rights. Conducts investigations, apprehensions/detention of individuals suspected or convicted of offenses against the criminal laws of the United States. Advises individuals of their (Miranda, Weingarten, Garrity, etc.) rights, and protects the constitutional and civil rights of persons. Conducts investigations with a nexus to on organization, prisoner transport, patient search and recovery. Responds to calls for police assistance, irregularities, and unusual or suspicious circumstances. Detains witnesses and apprehends suspects, makes arrests and performs booking procedures. Executes arrest warrants issued by federal and local courts. Seeks, detects, seizes, and protects evidence and witnesses at the scene of an incident. Intervenes when necessary to deescalate situations and determines when and how much force must be applied. Provides emergency response coordination as needed. Makes independent decisions and takes/coordinate immediate steps to preserve life and property. Intervenes to deescalate active suicidal behavior and/or prevents suicides, when needed. Provides and/or coordinates staff training during shift briefing or designated training days. Ensures instruction on work sequence, procedures, methods, and deadlines are met. Coaches and mentors current and new police officers to ensure employees obtain the necessary training. Provides on-the-job training in accordance with established procedures and practices. Leads, initiates and guides staff regarding how to proceed with investigative stops on suspicious and potentially dangerous persons and suspicious vehicles independently. Work Schedule: 1 vacancy for Missoula location; Various tours, to be discussed during interview. 2 vacancies for Fort Harrison location; Various tours of 7:00am to 7:00pm to be discussed during interview. Position Description Title/PD#: Lead Police Officer - Sergeant/PD14625A, PD14625A, and PD14625A Physical Requirements: The work requires, on a regular and recurring basis, considerable and strenuous physical exertion such as frequent climbing of multiple flights of stairs and carrying items weighing over 50 pounds. It requires stamina, physical agility, dexterity, and the strength to pursue, apprehend or detain. The work involves both moderate and high risks and possible endangerment of life or serious injury that requires the exercise of safety precautions and use of personal protective equipment The work is performed in settings in which there is regular and recurring exposure to moderate to severe discomforts and unpleasantness, such as high temperatures in confined spaces, high temperatures due to mandatory protective personal equipment, or adverse weather conditions during extended periods of traffic and patrol duties. The work involves moderate risk requiring exercise of safety precautions when working around hazardous materials such as toxic gases, explosives, infectious biological materials, and others that pose a moderate risk.

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. NOTE: Military Police Officer, to include having arrest authority in the performance of your duties. When Military service is used to meet the GS-083 minimum Qualification Requirements the applicant must have one of these Qualifying Specialties listed on their DD-214: ARMY- 95B, 95C, 31A, 31B, 31D; MARINE CORPS-5803, 5805, 5811, 5812, 5813, 5814, 5821; AIR FORCE-08111-114, 81110, 81170, 81172, 81130, 81150, 81112, 81132, 81152, 81199, 3P1-4, 3P011, 3P031, 3P051, 3P071, 3P091, 75011, 75031, 75051, 75071, 75091; NAVY- 9545, 0000MA. You may qualify based on your experience as described below: GS-07 grade level: One (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-7 grade level in the Federal service (or equivalent pay band), that provided a knowledge of a body of basic laws and regulations, law enforcement operations, practices, and techniques and involved responsibility for maintaining order and protecting life and property. Specialized experience includes: leading and directing employees in their duties in response to potential threats of violence, detecting criminal activity, fire and other emergencies; enforcing federal, state, and local laws; making arrests; conducting foot and vehicle patrol; maintaining control of a scene or incident; taking statements from witnesses/suspects and advising them of their rights; preparing detailed reports of criminal offenses, violations, incidents, and citations issued; interrogating suspects; and applying all correct rules of search and seizure; knowledge in teaching or instructing in police and security matters related to Federal, State, County, Municipal statutes, laws and ordinances, and rules and regulations pertaining to law enforcement. Creditable specialized experience may have been gained in work on a police force; through service as a military police officer; in work providing visitor protection and law enforcement in parks, forests, or other natural resource or recreational environments; in performing criminal investigative duties; or in other work that provided the required knowledge and skills. Note: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hour worked per week. Experience as a security guard or corrections officer is generally NOT qualifying. NOTE: You must provide detailed information of your experience performed. Information such as "I was a Patrolman", "I was a Police Officer for a number of years," or "I enforced Federal, State, county, and laws" is insufficient to determine your qualifications. Experience must be fully documented in your resume and must include job title, duties, month & year start/end dates AND hours worked per week. CONTINUED SERVICE AGREEMENT (CSA) REQUIREMENT: Before attending training, an employee subject to VA's continued service agreement must sign an agreement to continue in service after training is completed. The period of service will be equal to at least three times the length of the training. With a signed agreement, the agency has a right to recover training costs, except pay or other compensation, if the employee voluntarily transfers to another VA, Federal Agency or voluntarily separates from Government service. Driver's License Requirement: This position requires a current, valid, state-issued driver's license. NOTE: We cannot accept photographs, therefore; please do not submit a copy of your driver's license with your application package. If an interview is requested, you may be required to provide a copy of your valid state-issued driver's license. IMPORTANT NOTES: (1) As a condition of employment, must qualify to be issued a firearm and semi-annually with assigned firearm, annually with an expandable Straight Baton (MEB), maintain a valid State or Commonwealth Driver's License and pass annual physical and psychosocial assessment. Applicants must be able to possess firearms under the terms of the Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9). Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the occupational questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on 01/12/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12859381. 1. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. 2. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USA Jobs account and clicking on Applications. Information regarding your application status can be found in the USAJobs Help Center. To return to an incomplete application, log into your USAJOBS account and click Update Application in the vacancy announcement. You must re-select your resume and/or other documents from your USAJOBS account or your application will be incomplete. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration.Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/

Application Deadline: 2026-01-12