By Jim Newell
Managing Editor
jnewell@mihomepaper.com
ORION TWP. — When Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Lt. H. Keith Weir learned that he was being reassigned as the new commander of the Orion Township Substation – just a few days after returning from a vacation – there was a sense of coming home.

He was born in Pontiac, raised in Lake Orion and graduated from Lake Orion High School.
“I spent my first 29 years living in Lake Orion before I moved when I got married. And now I’m back, working in the community that gave to me, that provided me a future,” he said.
Orion Township announced Weir’s appointment on its Facebook page on Oct. 30. Weir will oversee a police force of 36 people, including deputies and administrative staff.
Weir, a 24-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, has served in various roles throughout his career, beginning in the Corrections Division.
In 2005, he switched to road patrol, training in Orion Township and patrolling Oxford and then Addison townships. From there he went to the Rochester Hills detective bureau. Later, he went back to Addison Township as its substation commander for six years. His most recent assignment was as a patrol lieutenant in the Pontiac Division, overseeing community policing, direct patrol, traffic enforcement and more.
Now, Weir said his goal is to keep Orion Township safe and thriving and help enhance the services he and his deputies provide to the community.
Orion Township, which has more than 40,000 people, is consistently listed as one of the top 10 safest communities in Michigan with a population of more than 25,000 residents.
Weir said the perception that police are out there just to catch bad guys, while still an important aspect of the job, doesn’t tell the complete story of how deputies now interact with the community.
“That’s not policing anymore. Policing has changed and we’ve evolved with it. Now it’s more of a service industry – what service can we provide and what do we owe this community, what can we give back?” he said. “And to see that this is one of the safest communities not just in Oakland County but in the state of Michigan is a tremendous asset. But then you look at ‘what else can you bring, what else can you provide to the community?
Working with the schools, business leaders, homeowners’ associations and senior centers to address their needs is also part of community policing that Weir hopes to continue and enhance. He cites helping educate seniors and others on the ever-growing problem of ID theft, or helping HOAs with traffic concerns and keeping students safe as they arrive at, or leave school, as the services that many people may not realize are part of the job.
“We’re doing it in several communities throughout the county and we see that it works,” Weir said. “It’s the little things. The services you provide that people don’t really think about when you think about law enforcement. I just want to look at things that I can bring from my history and my previous assignments and say, ‘Okay, what can we additionally add to make things better for this community?’”
Working in Pontiac was where Weir really had a strong focus on community policing and finding ways to work with the community.
“I gained their trust by not just going in and incarcerating people. We don’t want to just lock people up, we’re not going to lock our way out of the problem,” Weir said. “So, what was the problem…drugs, low-level offenses, open intoxicants, public intoxication, gambling, those low-level crimes that we saw throughout these communities.”
But those types of problems led to fights and shootings within the community, he said.
“So, we addressed those problems, we put in a zero-tolerance policy on those low-level crimes and it brought (violent crimes) down. But we did it through the help of the community members too. It wasn’t just law enforcement going in and acting on these things,” Weir said.
While he’s happy to be in Orion Township, the move was also a little bittersweet at first because Weir felt he was getting to the point where he was really making a difference in the community policing unit and health and safety subcommittee in Pontiac.
“I thought we were making huge strides. At first, it was small, incremental changes that were going to make a difference years, months down the road. Then we started seeing changes that are making a daily change in people’s lives. So, it was bittersweet to leave that when I saw the success we were having,” Weir said.
Coming to Orion Township, Weir immediately knew many of the deputies under his command, having previously worked with nearly all of the dayshift deputies at the Orion Township Substation at some point in his career.
“Once I got here and started meeting the people here, it was great to see them again and see where they were in their careers,” Weir said.