ADRIAN — The Adrian Police Department has seen calls for service decrease the past three years.
According to Adrian Police Chief Vince Emrick, a call for service “denotes both dispatched calls as well as any activity we initiate ourselves.” He said, through an email interview Monday, a call from a citizen to report a crime and an officer making a traffic stop are both logged as calls for service.
In 2015 there were at 19,398 such calls, in 2016 there were 18,280 and then last year the department had 17,211.
In reviewing the numbers, Emrick said he had some different takeaways. One big one is the department’s resources are spread thin.
“Calls for service are down for a third year, but still high in terms of calls per officer,” Emrick said.
He said the national average for cities Adrian’s size is around two officers per 1,000 residents. Adrian is right around 1.3 per 1,000 residents.
“Fewer officers means more calls each, which means less available time to search for crimes in progress,” he said.
In addition, he said, recent changes in state law also lead to more time preparing reports, collecting DNA and uploading/annotating video. He said those duties are important and necessary for successful prosecution, but do take away from available time for patrol.
“If you look at our dashboard information you will see that, yes, calls are down, but so are arrests and specifically OWI arrests,” Emrick said. “The drop in numbers to me does not mean there are fewer drunk drivers, rather fewer hours available to be on the road to catch them.”
In looking at other takeaways, he said the department’s new CLEMIS-Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System system and Crimemapping software has helped the department track calls and better assign directed patrols.
He also said changes in traffic control have been effective at Maple Avenue/Winter Street, Main Street/Siena and Broad/State streets. Emrick said Maple/Winter streets used to be among our top 10 intersections for crashes.
“We have not had one there since the change on Oct. 23, 2017,” he said of the traffic order to prohibit left turns onto Winter from Maple.
The department is assessing traffic control at other locations based on the recent successes.
What stood out to Emrick from 2017, as far as incidents dealt with, he said were that overdoses continue despite our efforts with Narcan/Naloxone deployment.
“We have many saves to our credit, but the underlying problem of addiction remains as does the crime associated with drug use,” he said.
As for solutions, Emrick said the APD currently is shifting some duties away from officers onto support staff to make the officers more available. He they also have restarted the cadet program to assist the office staff and through working with the Lenawee County courthouse, which has begun housing all bench warrants, it relieves the APD of that burden.
He said they are seeking grant opportunities for special patrols and warrant enforcement, and are exploring the use of a city camera system similar to what its deployed in Wauseon, which has them up at key intersections and public places with the server located at their police department.
"We would like them at certain intersections and in other places to prevent problems," Emrick said citing parks and downtown as two of the other places.