FORT WAYNE– Recently on December 4, 2024, two Fort Wayne area state troopers celebrated a milestone service anniversaries with the department.
Major Anthony Casto- Currently assigned as the North Zone Commander, Major Casto has command oversight of the day-to-day operations and personnel in the six northern Indiana State Police Districts, a position which he has held for roughly six years. Before this current assignment, Casto has held several other command positions, including the Area II Commander, District Commander for the Fort Wayne Post, and Squad Sergeant for the Fort Wayne Post.
Casto is a 2017 graduate of the FBI National Academy 267th Session and a 2014 graduate of the IMPD Leadership Academy Session 2014-02. Other notable assignments have included service as a K-9 Handler with the Fort Wayne Post’s Drug Interdiction Team from 1998-2003, a scuba diver with Underwater Search & Rescue Team II, and he also served with the Motorcycle Patrol.
Casto is a 1986 graduate of LaPorte High School and a 1990 graduate of Indiana State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education.
Before joining the Indiana State Police, Casto was a high school educator and a coach for boys and girls basketball and volleyball at Homestead High School from 1990-93 and Whitko High School from 1993-94.
Major Anthony Casto and Master Trooper Aaron Cook, both classmates of the 51st Indiana State Police Recruit Academy that graduated back on December 4, 1994, have now surpassed 30 years of service.
Master Trooper Aaron Cook– Currently assigned as part of the Fort Wayne District’s All Crimes Policing (ACP) Squad, Cook primarily patrols Whitley and Allen Counties diligently focused on highway criminal interdiction efforts.
Before this current assignment, Cook served five years as a Squad Sergeant for the Fort Wayne Post, responsible for the leadership and supervision of troopers assigned to Whitley and Huntington Counties. He served as a member of the District’s Drug Interdiction Team from 1998-2003 and has been a member of the department’s Tactical Intervention Platoon.
As a testament to Master Trooper Cook’s tenacious work ethic and dedication to duty, he has been notably awarded several times throughout his 25-year tenure. In 2004, he was awarded the department’s second-highest medal of valor, the Silver Star Award, due to his life-saving actions that rescued a driver from a crashed and burning vehicle in Whitley County. In 2009, he was awarded the department’s Combat Action Award for heroic and exemplary action taken to protect himself and a fellow trooper while amid a gunfight in rural Huntington County. In 2017, he was named the Trooper of the Year for the Fort Wayne Post because of his productive enforcement and interdiction patrols.
Cook is a 1989 Columbia City graduate and a lifelong Whitley County resident.
On behalf of Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter, we congratulate and thank Major Casto and Master Trooper Cook for 30 years of dedicated public service to the citizens of Indiana.
