| The Sheriff’s View #52 for Dec. 22 to 26, 2008 |
By: Sheriff J.B. King
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Posted: Saturday, January 10, 2009 12:45 pm
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Sheriff J.B. King
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Welcome aboard for the last sheriff’s view column for the year 2008. It is a cold, cold, morning in the Ozarks. It was a long cold night for a bunch of local police officers here in Pulaski County. I will take a minute to write that story.
It started when the Missouri State Highway Patrol was advised of a minor vehicle accident in the westbound lanes of I-44 at the 159-mile marker, which is at the bottom of the St. Robert hill near the Roubidioux River. The two subjects in the car had fled on foot prior to the arrival of the Trooper. A check of the vehicle license plate produced the fact that the car had been reported stolen and the occupants were also suspects in other crimes. The manhunt started under very cold and windy conditions.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol was the lead agency for this incident and the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department, the Waynesville City Police and the St. Robert City Police assisted them. The hunt lasted for several hours but ended successfully when the Patrol got a tip that the suspects were at the Greyhound Bus Station on the Ft, Wood spur. The officers descended on the bus station and were able to take the man and woman into custody without incident. The two are currently being held in the Pulaski County Jail pending the filing of formal charges.
Otherwise it was a slow night and that was good to hear because the manhunt tied up all the deputies we had on duty plus the reserves who came in to help out during the crisis. But we have a happy ending to report this morning and the only unhappy people are the two new guests in our jail. I think it would be safe to say that their problems have just started and they will not be happy for a long time.
Our case number/calls for service count this morning stands at 10,373. The manhunt I just reported on was one of those numbers. Under our procedure the incident was assigned a case number and every move we made during the manhunt will be found in the computer aided dispatch (CAD) log of the incident. If any of our deputies need to write a report on some specific action related to this incident they would use the case number already assigned to the incident. If not then the incident will show up on our monthly call for service list as a simple assist other agency and unless you know the details you would not understand that the assist lasted many hours and involved eight or more of our deputies.
I have the November dispatch numbers for today’s column. Actually I had them two weeks ago but I never could remember to bring them home so I could include them in the column. We had 3,493 telephone calls and 1,084 people at the front window. For what it is worth the 3,493 telephone calls was the lowest phone count for this year in a single month. The window count was the third lowest for the year. We also had 41 animal calls, 9 domestics and 9 more people were arrested at the front window after dispatch found a warrant for them. So far this year we have logged 1,057 calls for service related to animals, mostly reports of neglect and abuse.
We have started another little job for the night shift deputies. When they are not busy responding to calls or serving civil process papers we are trying to clear the stacks of old Pulaski County arrest warrants. The team consists of the dispatcher on duty who checks high and low for new addresses for the suspects in these old cases. Once the dispatcher locates a possible current address the deputies on the night shift go to that address and attempt to serve the old warrant.
We have followed this practice for years on selected warrants but we did not start a systematic method of doing this on all warrants or of keeping track of the results until recently. During the last half of November we arrested 14 people and cleared 16 old warrants using this approach. During one shift on 12-16-08 we made 6 arrests and cleared 7 warrants in a single night. We should be able to reduce the number of old warrants but time is the key. If we have a lot of calls for that shift or a lot of court papers that need to be served the warrants will have to wait. We do not have the manpower to do all three missions at the same time.
We do not have any progress on the court action to settle the issue of the November Sheriff’s election. After all of the judges in the 25th Judicial Circuit refused the case the Honorable Judge John C. Brackman was appointed to hear the case. Judge Brackman set an initial court date of Dec. 18, 2008, at 9:00am in Pulaski County Circuit Court to hear the case. However the attorneys for former sheriff Roberts disqualified Judge Brackman and we are still waiting for a second judge to be appointed to the case. If you want to follow the case you may go to Missouri Case Net and the case number is 08PU-CV02247.
On a related note the swearing in ceremony for the newly elected Pulaski County officials will be held in the main lobby of the Pulaski County Courthouse at 9:00am on Dec. 31, 2008. The event will be open to the public to attend.
And I believe that I am out of space and words for another column. Stay tuned for 2009 and 52 more columns to follow. Until then please drive carefully and keep your actions legal. We are still out of money to pay for your jail time so stay away from the Pulaski County Jail! But as I have said before if you just have to visit our jail we shall leave the light on for you.
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