- I'd like to call this October 16, 2025 regular meeting of the Board of Public Safety to order. And first
- on the agenda is the consent agenda. The consent agenda contains the following items, approval of claims
- October 10, 2025, and approval of payroll October 3, 2025. Does any member of the board wish to have
- any one or more of these items removed from the consent agenda to be discussed separately? No?
- Hearing none, does any member of the board have any objections to any of the items on the consent agenda?
- Hearing none, the items on the consent agenda are approved. And we will go to police business.
- The good news actually out of this slide is that we've seen a little bit of a decrease in the amount
- of calls. We were at about 15% higher rate from 2024. I believe like last month and the month leading
- up to this, we're down to 12.3%. So I mean, calls are still higher than what they were, but maybe starting
- to slow at least a little bit. Really not much here. I guess I shouldn't say that. Obviously we did have a
- We've recently had a murder, so that will go up again, but that's not included in this because it was
- from last month's stats. So that would put us at the same rate as what we were as far as murders for
- 2024. OWIRS continue to go up. There's actually a lot of that's probably due to the actions of basically
- a single officer. There is a night shift officer that really enjoys going out and finding intoxicated
- drivers and getting them off the road, and she's done a really
- good job at that. So the more that she finds, I would say those numbers will continue to go up. It is
- something that she prides herself on. So that's probably so much more people drinking and driving, but
- she's just catching more of them? Yeah. She really likes to focus on traffic enforcement and trying
- to find those that are intoxicated. And she's done a really good job. She single-handedly is increasing
- those numbers quite a bit.
- Traffic stops are down slightly. Honestly, that's probably based upon that, I guess, that second slide
- where we talk about calls for service going up. The more calls that we're on, the less time that the
- officers have for traffic stops, but still quite a bit higher than they were a couple years ago. Weapon
- incidents continue to go down, which is obviously a good thing. And I think that that can be attributed
- to the work of our detectives, and every time
- we seize a firearm or when we make arrests and those related to weapon incidents, we try and see if
- that weapon is tied to any other incidents as far as that we've taken as far as like ballistics and
- things like that. And I think that that's really making a dent in these as we continue to target these
- people that are violent, that are carrying weapons and using weapons. And hopefully, it's probably because
- that they're in jail and not committing other crimes.
- Arrests are slightly up, I guess down from last month, but they are up from last year. We'd continue
- to be aggressive in kind of the downtown area and making sure that people are playing by the rules and
- not causing disturbances and making Kirkwood a enjoyable place for people to visit. Referrals are the
- exact same as they were last year. They usually stay pretty consistent.
- No hate crimes. And this would have been the end of the reporting period for that third quarter. So
- we're three quarters right through the year with no hate crimes. News and scalls, disturbances, but
- probably 75% of those involve alcohol or other intoxicants. So training hours, 667 and a half.
- We had a couple officer attend a defensive tactics instructor school, which is now, they changed the
- defensive tactics for the state of Indiana, the requirements for instructors. So everyone that was a
- DT instructor before now has to go back through. And then we had, we'd send someone to a homicide school.
- We have another officer that's going through the full traffic crash reconstruction program, which is
- a six week or six total weeks. He did two more weeks of it.
- I've been through it. It's very, very boring and a lot of math. And then some hostage negotiators as
- well. A lot of touch the truck events, correct, Sarah? Sarah coordinates with people that are having
- events. And we get invited to a lot of touch the truck things. We did do the safety check with MIH from
- the fire department. And the Residence Academy is underway.
- like upcoming things or really the main one I shouldn't say the main one but one that we do usually
- get a lot of positive feedback is the DEA prescription drug take back day where we can take you know
- unused medications and dispose of them properly so they're not finding their way into the wrong hands
- and then also the Wonder Woman event with housing on the 15th which I guess was last night.
- Social workers continue to be busy and our outreach, the outreach and resource specialists that really
- spend their time kind of on that V line and in the Kirkwood kind of corridor. They did get housing for
- two long-term unhoused people, which is definitely a bonus. Hopefully they can work with them to keep
- them housed. And then the
- The main highlight here is actually it was a woman that actually lives within the jurisdiction of the
- sheriff's office, but she had called dispatch over 1,300 times so far this year. And they were able
- to get her 24-hour care. The problem was that she lives with her daughter. She does have dementia every
- time her daughter would leave for work, the eight hours that her daughter was gone.
- Three to four of those hours, I think, is what it ended up being. She did not have a caregiver in the
- home with her. So she would just call 911 just over and over and over. And it was really overwhelming
- for the dispatchers as well. But they were able to get her 24-hour care. So now I'm not sure if she's
- even called since they were able to get that. So that was definitely helpful. We do have a letter. Sarah
- sent this to the chief. You took a phone call. Is that my understanding?
- who wished to give praise to an officer. So we've included that in the packet.
- Is it police? You mentioned a couple of times Kirkwood Avenue. I'm relatively new to the community.
- And so is that a hot spot? Is there something about that? So what we've been experiencing with Kirkwood
- is with the street closures, it tends to attract a transient crowd.
- And they've been causing quite a few problems with other people down in that area. So we've increased
- our foot patrols and made arrests for and set written citations for drinking in public and things like
- that. So it's typically not a problem area, but it's become one because of really a variety of things
- that have occurred in the community with
- that transient population and closing camps and things like that. Okay. Does that extend just to college
- or Walnut or is it going further west than that? I'm sorry. Does it extend past college or Walnut to
- go west beyond that? It's basically between Indiana and Walnut. Okay. I live near Rogers and Cookwood
- and I've walked a lot in the last few weeks. I've had really several concerning interactions with people
- I think are homeless and it just hasn't been like college ways, but it was, I don't like this.
- Yeah. I think you're moving the last thing. Thanks. General business to you. So only general business
- stuff is we continue to stay really busy. We've had some pretty major things that have happened where
- we've made arrests. So that's a good thing. We're slowly making some progress on a new building.
- So we're at the very beginning of that process. So as that progresses, we'll keep you updated on that.
- Does the BCC building still look like it might work? Does the building on South Rogers still look like
- it might work? Personnel, we're still at 94 out of 105. We have, well, hit the last meeting. The board
- approved three, four conditional offers. They all accepted.
- Yesterday one of them called me and they got injured at work while I don't know if they were in a tussle
- with someone or chasing someone. They tore their knee out this past weekend. So she's going to kind
- of withdraw from the process at this point and get the workers comp deal. She's probably going to require
- surgery. So she's going to get that taken care of with her current employer and make sure that she gets
- healed back up and then she might continue in our process at a later time.
- We also have several that have reached out that are certified officers at other agencies that would
- like to apply with us. So I'll probably host another certified process within the next three to four
- weeks, depending on, starting to get to a time of year where it gets pretty busy and then you got holidays
- and stuff. We'll try and host one more, at least get one more going before the end of the year. Purchases,
- I'm not aware of anything. I'm not aware of any large purchases.
- And I'm not aware of any certain deployments. Are you with that? I'm sure I think I went in the last.
- I don't believe. I think it was in the previous one. Yeah, I don't believe there was a Bearcat deployment.
- OK, there's our year to date breakdown for calls. From August, we had 28.
- fire calls and there were 18 last month. So they've gone up quite a bit and false alarms is still our
- biggest, biggest one next to rescue and EMS. So August had 113 false alarms and or excuse me, September
- did and rescue there was 258. So in the past five years, if we were compare runs September of
- 2020, there were 358 calls for the month. And September, we're looking at 597. So it's gone up roughly
- 41% over five years in just that one month for September stats. NIU, if we go out of the city,
- it's 2IU. So not really out.
- of the different types we have on campus, false alarms and EMS. And those of the IU calls that makes
- up 17% of our September runs were to campus. So we were all over. If you recall the heat map from the
- last time, it was so diffused that it didn't even hardly register. We went to several locations several times.
- Prevention, 35% of the goal, trying to get to 2250 general inspections. So their outreach has increased
- considerably since we started tracking it. So every month is the first one. For public engagement, we've
- done 66 smoke detector installations for
- the year as far our annual goal is 100. So we're considerably up in adults educated this year so far.
- October is fire prevention month. We don't just celebrate a day or a week. We do a month because we
- go to a lot of schools and there's a lot of events going on. So we actually have a truck going this
- weekend to Lowe's. They're doing one of the kids
- building projects they do. So we're going to have a crew there. They're building a firehouse with a
- working pole, is what the website says. So I don't know how that's going to work, but a crew is going.
- It's from 10 to 1 at Lowe's, and you can register online.
- Training hours were 78% of our goal, which is 42,000. Top categories are firefighter, officer, and other,
- as we were to divide up the categories. So we did the second block of the leadership series that DHS
- does for Indiana. And there's four, four or five blocks of that. So we've hosted less two.
- So last month, September, was a big month for car seats. We did 15, which most of them were at the event.
- Over 10 of them were at the event, which was with the health department and BPD. And it was a fun event
- to be at. You can see the wins there. They got somebody who really needed some help, and they were being
- financially scammed.
- while they took care of their medical, they got referred to where they could get the other help that
- they needed. So they went to Kinzer flats and did training on AED CPR and stop the bleed. And then especially
- the last one, the team received the patient referral from the DROs down at Crawford. And when the team went,
- They had a seizure, the patient did. They arranged for ambulance transport, and the hospital staff said
- the patient would not have survived had they not received the intervention we did. So DRO's Fabris and
- Britton were critical in getting him the help that they needed. One of them had to get access for the
- team, and the other one made the call, said he's
- He's off, he's not in normal. So he was familiar enough that the patient knew that something was wrong.
- So they saved his life. And let's see. And then we had pictures from our car seat events. So we measure,
- make sure they're in the right height that they need to be. Grant's stuff got us the little teddy bears
- with the VFD t-shirt.
- As far as general business, we are currently interviewing candidates for our admin assistant position
- that's open. We had a huge amount of applications that we've been interviewing all week. So we hope
- to have that position filled likely next month. Personality issues, we currently have four out on basic
- bonding with four that are intermittently taken or about to take it. So along with having a much younger
- average workforce, we're seeing the impact of that program a lot more right now. So, quite a few off,
- we're about to be off of that. To go with that, one off on FMLA and three on my duty, two of which should
- return soon. Expenditures, we talked a little earlier before the meeting, station three is done,
- looks really, really good. They're operating out of it, and it's a huge success. If you haven't seen
- it yet, please come by, happy to show it to you, it looks good.
- And then lastly, we've mentioned in a previous meeting, the training tower maintenance and painting
- has been completed. So that looks really good down there. Now to fix some corrosion and some damage
- and put a fresh coat of paint on it and everything down there looks pretty nice. Otherwise, I think
- that covers all of our categories. Any old business? New business?
- Police department did a bang-up job on that murder investigation. By going to that filling station at
- Kirkwood and Rogers, that's, wow. Yeah. Detective Scott really did do a, he's done like 20 hour days
- or something. He was here all the time. But he really did a good job on that. And there were no leaks
- before that. When I read that, I was like, wow.
- They got that film before the murder even happened. That's pretty impressive. And then tied him to another
- shooting up on the north side as well. Yeah, that's right. OK, petitions, communications, anybody from
- the audience? Anybody? No? All right. Well, then I call this meeting adjourned.