Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Police Department saw a decline of 3 percent in its call volume from 2017 to 2018, but the number of crimes reported increased by 10.9 percent.
Department officials counted 9,626 calls in 2018, down from 9,914 in 2017, according to figures reported by Police Chief Jeff Lynn last week.
Among those calls were 151 person crimes in 2018, up from 129 in 2017, and 642 property crimes, up from 577 in 2017.
Police cleared 104 person crimes in 2018, up from 93 in 2017, and 222 property crimes in 2018, up from 201.
The change is not quite two more person crimes per month than the previous year, Lynn said, and a little more than five more property crimes per month.
Police officials will break down those numbers in more detail for the department’s 2018 annual report next month, Lynn said, and it will use those numbers to help determine courses of action this year.
At this point, police already know, for example, that the number of unauthorized entry into motor vehicle reports increased dramatically in 2018. They saw the increase during the year, and Lynn assigned a sergeant to develop plans to directly address it.
Before digging too far into the data, Lynn said, police know that UEMVs are driving the property crime increase.
“As we come into the next few months, we’ll really look into the property crimes and make inferences as to why they went up,” Lynn said. “We’re going to look at implementing surveillance system software to provide officers with additional investigation leads.”
He expects to roll that out in February, Lynn said. The software will map locations of private surveillance systems throughout Sweet Home – with the permission of the owners.
While an officer is on a call investigating a crime, the officer can pull up the map on a laptop and determine if nearby surveillance cameras are available and request copies from the owners of the surveillance.
In 2019, “we’re moving more to a problem-solving (approach),” Lynn said, to address specific areas of concern. “We are always going to have the calls we respond to,” Lynn said. His goal is to “get ahead of the curve, find solutions and solve problems.”
One sergeant is looking specifically at UEMVs, while the other three are working on other individual projects, including issues on Willow Street involving crime and code enforcement, one on downtown traffic and one on internal issues.
Lynn also is taking on a special project: homelessness. He has formed an ad hoc committee to address issues surrounding homelessness. At the end of the year, the committee was working with a regional multi-organization Adult Services Team to come to Sweet Home.
“The goal is to bring existing resources that may be able to assist the homeless population into Sweet Home,” Lynn said. “There are a lot of resources available. They just aren’t easily accessible to those in East County.”
The committee will continue to work on homelessness this year, with its first meeting scheduled for Thursday. Anyone interested in getting involved should contact Lynn at (541) 367-5181.
In the next year, Lynn plans to maintain the status quo on staffing. With police officer positions nearly filled, the department will move a patrol officer to detective. The city included a new detective position for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
While the department’s two detectives will have overlapping duties, the new detective will focus primarily on property crimes in followup to patrol calls, Lynn said. The detective will also provide patrol coverage when needed.
The department has yet to select the new detective, Lynn said, but it has several officers who, he said, would be really good at it.
For equipment, the department will order new radios this year for officers and for the vehicles, Lynn said. The vehicle radios reached “end of life” Dec. 31, and portable radios reach end of life at the end of 2019.
“End of life” means the manufacturer will no longer support and repair them, Lynn said.
Its fleet is finally being built back up, Lynn said. The department has had a lot of aging vehicles.
He hopes to add another patrol vehicle this year and get back to where officials are comfortable with the fleet, he said. The vehicle is in the 2018-19 budget.
Patrol vehicles add 18,000 to 24,000 miles per year, Lynn said. Historically, the department replaced them at about 100,000 miles. About three years ago, the department began adding an additional year to the keep vehicles in the fleet.
They’re reaching 120,000 to 130,000 miles before replacement, Lynn said, and at that point, staff members are noticing more issues with them.
The department is looking at the Dodge Durango designed for patrol, Lynn said. SHPD has been buying Ford Interceptor SUVs, but Ford won’t offer new Interceptors until 2020.