Week 5 - Patrol Procedures, DUI Enforcement and Accident Investigation - JCSO Citizen's Academy

Week 5 started with an introduction to Patrol Procedures then covered DUI Enforcement and finally Accident Investigations.  As with last week, there is a lot of material so I will break it up in to a couple blog entries.  This entry will cover Patrol.  Captain Shaine Pennington, Sergeant Mark Rokusek and Lieutenant Mike Hart led this portion of the class.

Patrol Division consists of four specialized units: Community Policing (update:  I learned in my most recent ride along that Community Policing is no longer an active unit but rather this task is split up among deputies in patrol), Directed Patrol, Patrol, and Accident Investigation; also one full-time Animal Control Officer.  Directed Patrol and Animal Control will be covered in a later class.  This week's class focused on Patrol.

The Patrol Division is located in the Sheriff’s Office Operations Building at the New Century Air Center.  Purpose of the Patrol Division is to provide law enforcement and other related safety services to citizens residing in unincorporated Johnson County.  Also, the cities of De Soto and Edgerton contract law enforcement services with the Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies patrol nearly 240 square miles 24 hours/day. JCSO has 5 patrol districts.  For a district map follow this link to their web page: http://www.jocosheriff.org/index.aspx?page=137.  1 deputy is assigned to patrol each district per shift.  There is also a shift commander and patrol sergeant available to go out in the field as needed.  JCSO also provides mutual aid to city police departments as needed and vice verse.  Approximately 29 miles of I35 runs through JC and keeps deputies and other municipalities busy with everything from traffic accidents to smugglers of illegal contraband.

Patrol deputies respond to emergency and other calls for service, preserve the peace, enforce state and other applicable criminal and traffic laws, investigate vehicular accidents and apprehend violators of the law. The Patrol Division also directs animal control activities in the unincorporated areas of the County.  Each officer assigned to the division is a certified law enforcement officer in the State of Kansas and must complete an additional 16 week training program specific to patrol after completion of the police academy.

Calls for service stats:  9855 calls in 2009, 10339 in 2010 and 9043 in 2011.  Calls for service do not include self initiated activity by deputies.  Calls for service tend to trend and there is no known correlation for why it decreases in some years and goes up in others.  In 2011 of the 9043 calls for service, 5003 reports were generated (meaning some type of action was taken), 3531 calls resulted in a Field Disposition Report (meaning no crime was found to have occurred and no action was taken), 447 calls were non-injury auto accidents, 59 calls were injury auto accidents, 3 calls were fatality crashes (Accident Investigation team was deployed for the auto accident calls).  There were no homicides in 2011 and one attempted homicide. 

7063 traffic citations were written in 2011 which equals about 19/day. (I am happy to report I was not one of them!)

Average response time for emergency calls is approximately 7 minutes.  Average response time for non-emergency calls is 13 minutes.  

Arrest stats:  905 in 2009, 1025 in 2010 and 962 in 2011.  Of those arrests, 302 were DUI in 2009, 335 in 2010 and 337 in 2011.  JCSO is consistently in top 5 among local law enforcement agencies in arresting impaired drivers.  They use check lanes and saturation patrols.  More about DUI Enforcement later...

Equipment used by deputies includes:  Uniform/Duty Gear, Vehicle (JCSO will be transitioning from the Ford Crown Vic to the Chevy Tahoe), Radar, Mobile Data Terminal, Video System.  AXON camera system made by TASER is currently being tested by deputies for use in detention and in the field.

It was during this class that participants got to sign up for a ride along opportunity.  I will be doing my first one in a few weeks.  I requested to do at least one of my ride alongs with a female officer because I think it's interesting that women want to be law enforcement officers in what is still truly a male dominant profession.  (Women still account for only about 15% of leo's across the nation.  I requested the stats for JCSO and they are right at 15%.)  I would like to know if women feel they have an advantage or disadvantage.  Looking forward to the ride along and will of course blog about it.

Next blog entry will cover DUI Enforcement...