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.