FARMINGTON – Officer Bridgette L. Dellarma has been selected as the Farmington Police Department’s Employee of the Quarter for the spring.

Police Chief Richard Caton said she was selected for her work on sexual assault investigations and for volunteering to be the department’s primary sexual assault investigator.

“As sexual assaults are one of the most heinous crimes we investigate as police officers, it takes a special type of officer to investigate these properly, as there are the particular needs of the victim to consider,” Caton said. “This is especially true when the victim is a child.”

A lot of time is spent on these cases, he said. But many times the investigations don’t culminate with criminal prosecution due to how the criminal justice system works, he said. This isn’t easy for victims and their families to understand, and often the investigating officer bears the brunt of these frustrations, he noted.