Having spent seventeen years working child abuse investigations and educating new investigators and caseworkers for two different state agencies, Dave Pingel has seen first-hand the devastation and destruction child abuse wreaks upon innocent children. Underscored by a twenty-five-year career in municipal law enforcement that included thirteen years as a Missouri Chief of Police prior to his career in Child Protective Services, he writes with particular poignancy about his experiences with abused and neglected children of all ages, investigating their maltreatments, injuries and deaths, and interviewing parents, teachers, health care workers, other professionals and perpetrators. He recently retired from the Department of Family Services of a large state agency managing their Child Protective Services training academies.

Dave also spent several years in private education at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. His work with schools in Missouri and Florida included relating at times with families whose children and parents struggled with behavioral and chemical problems. 

Dave’s writings include short stories, magazine articles, and poetry. His poetry writing began at age 13 and he has kept every poem he’s written since then, even those awkward teenaged poems.

He has an undergraduate degree in Law Enforcement and Corrections from Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) and a graduate degree in Public Administration from the University of West Florida. 

Dave and his wife live in San Antonio, Texas.