Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam and Police Chief Sterling Owen today announced Tracy Isenberg as the September Civilian Employee of the Month for the Knoxville Police Department. Isenberg works in the Crime Analysis Unit and has been with the department since February 2002.

Chief Owen said Tracy is being honored for her efforts in locating and mapping convicted sex offenders that live within the City of Knoxville. From January 2005 through August 2005, Tracy entered information on all sex offenders into a database. Once entered, that information was then transferred into a mapping program.

Chief Owen said, "It was at this point that one of Tracy's coworkers entered his child's preschool into the program and realized that three sex offenders were living within a 1000' radius of his child's preschool. From that, the decision was made to map sex offender locations against the location of licensed daycare facilities."
Tracy spent the next several weeks gathering information and locations of daycare facilities in Knoxville. That information is now being sorted through and will be matched up with the sex offender information over the next few weeks.

Chief Owen said, "Tracy's outstanding work will mean once the project has been completed officers on the street will have access to this information via their in-car laptops 24/7 without the need to contact someone from the Crime Analysis Unit. This will greatly enhance the officers' knowledge when responding to a report of a missing child or other child in danger related calls."

Mayor Haslam said, "Tracy has put forth a tremendous effort in gathering and mapping sex offenders in relation to daycare centers. We commend her for her actions and for her work in helping to protect our most precious resource - our children."

Chief Owen said, "Because we feel this project is extremely beneficial to our officers and to the safety of our children, this information will be presented to daycare directors during a training seminar in early December. We believe this will help daycare centers further protect their children."

Tracy will receive a signed certificate from the Mayor and Chief along with a free dinner from Bayou Bay Seafood House.