By Alex Brick —
As a cop, Dale Sutherland busted cartel members. As a pastor, he got them saved.
“I have been able to lead to Christ a few of the guys we’ve arrested over the years as well,” he says. “I used to lock people up, and now I set them free.”
For 29 years, Dale Sutherland had two jobs. By day, he was a youth pastor. At night, he was an undercover narcotics officer in Washington D.C. He was leading people to jail and to Jesus.
To fund his way through Washington Bible College, Sutherland worked as a security guard alongside with real cops. He listened to their stories and was intrigued by the work. Eventually he applied to the force, figuring he would learn more about the underworld.
“I joined with the idea that I would get kind of an extra biblical education,” he says. “I would learn not just Bible college, but I was learning people in the streets.”
Sutherland climbed the ranks to detective sergeant of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Major Case Squad, a special investigative unit. He served as the lead investigator in 15 narcotic conspiracies, some of which lasted several months. In 2013, he retired at 50, three years after receiving the D.C. Detective Sergeant of the Year award.
He worked through the peak of the crack epidemic in the late 1980s. His unit would be called on multiple shooting scenes happening simultaneously almost every day. On one occasion, the informant got shot 28 times.
“He was young. He didn’t deserve that,” Sutherland says. “He just had a baby. That was all extremely sad.” A total of 18 drug dealers were arrested out of that investigation.
Meanwhile, he led a youth group at church. Seeing “the impact of sin and the pain that happens when sin goes crazy” helped him minister with urgency to kids who were waffling in their life decisions.
In his evidence gathering as an undercover officer, he would buy drugs from the dealers.
“How do you buy drugs to the glory of God?” Sutherland says. “You know, it’s quite complicated to try to think it through.”
His podcast “Cops, Criminals and Christ” discusses policing, criminality and how Christ can help both.
Not all of the criminals he’s arrested have gotten saved, but one cartel member was memorable.
“He prayed the prayer, committed his life to the Lord, wanted to get out of the business,” Sutherland says. “And so I’ve had that experience, but boy, I’ve had a million other experiences where there was nothing.”
Some of the guys get saved in jail, usually through the chaplain ministry. One of his former suspects is now his ministry partner.
Related content: After accepting Christ, he turned himself in to the police; pastor defuses tense gun-flashing situation at funeral, fatherlessness pushed Lecrae into crime. Sources: CBN, RNS.
