Bill Olson has been promoted to the Chief Investigator position with the Merced County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigations, announced District Attorney Larry D. Morse II. Olson replaces Pat Lunney, who recently retired after serving as chief investigator for nearly 10 years.
Olson, 52, a native of Merced County, joined the Merced District Attorney’s office in 2016 as an investigator, and has been responsible for the implementation and oversight of our new VIPER (Violence Interruption Prevention Emergency Response) program since the beginning of this year. This program is one of the first county intelligence units in California.
“Under Bill’s leadership VIPER has been instrumental in providing information analysis to local law enforcement, including important work on Operation Scrapbook, and key intelligence data that has helped clear several high profile cases in Merced County,” Morse said.
Olson began his career in law enforcement in 1987 with the Merced Police Department. He was hired by then Police Chief Pat Lunney, and spent seven years with the MPD, until he joined the Department of Justice as a special agent for the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in 1994. In 2001 he was promoted to Task Force Commander for the Yuba/Sutter Counties Narcotic Enforcement Team. In 2008 he was promoted to Commander of the Yolo County Narcotic Enforcement Team and in 2010 he was promoted to Task Force Commander-Placer County Special Investigations Unit, where he served until he retired from the DOJ in 2016.
He has also served as a Narcotics Instructor for the California Narcotics Officer Association and the Department of Justice, and was a Firearms/Tactical Instructor for the Department of Justice.
“I grew up here, attended elementary schools and graduated from Atwater High School, and although much has remained the same we live in a very different era of time. I look forward to working with all law enforcement agencies and representing the District Attorney’s Office, to make this community as safe as I remember it growing up,” Olson said.
The Merced County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigations is comprised of one supervising investigator, six full-time sworn peace officer investigators, three part-time sworn peace officer investigators, and three non-sworn investigative assistants.
