Topic: Sneak Peek Sheriff's View (Read 58506 times)

PCMOCOP · « **Reply #450 on:** June 09, 2008, 07:31:18 PM »

I am glad that the Sheriffs Department has decided that no other law enforcement agency in Pulaski County needs any additional funding that would be generated from a "LAW ENFORCEMENT TAX" not a Pulaski County Sheriffs Department tax. Does the Sheriff think that he has the only agency that is in need of additional funding? Or could it possibly be to help pay the salaries of the 5 or 6 people that he just promoted to Lieutenant? That is what has me confused. The Sheriffs Department has about 15 full time officers and they now have about 7 Lieutenants, the Sheriff, Chief Deputy and is looking for 2 or 3 Sergeants and Corporals. Who is supposed to actually patrol the county now? I am a Police Officer on a Department that is NOT the Sheriffs Department and I have seen numerous officers leave every department due to the lack of pay and equipment. I feel that for a department that is as short of money as we are consistently told, the Sheriffs Department is might want to consider adding additional Deputies instead of promoting everyone to a Staff/Command position. According to one of the news releases that the Waynesville Chief of Police put in the paper the Sheriff refuses to sign any mutual support agreements with the other agencies in the county. Why? because the county is his. How about making sure that your over worked, underpaid, undermanned, under equipped deputies can always be assured of support so you don't have to always call out the ones who are supposed to be off enjoying time with their families. Just so all the loyal JB supporters can have some thing to chew on. This is my point of view, from someone who paid my own way through the Sheriffs Training Academy and supported my family while doing so and is out there doing the job. (Oh yeah I did vote for JB last time around, but this time......Jury is still out)

Valor7 · « **Reply #451 on:** June 09, 2008, 08:39:34 PM »

All we did was put out a simple line chart of the department. For the purpose of the chart all section heads such as the chief jailer or the chief dispatcher were deemed to be Lt's so that all would be on an equal footing at staff meetings. It's called organization.
NOT ONE PERSON WAS ACTUALY PROMOTED AND THE OVERALL COST TO THE CITIZENS OF THE COUNTY WAS $0.00 IN EXTRA SALARY. SEVERAL OF THESE NEW LT'S ARE UNPAID RESERVES WHO SUPERVISE OTHER RESERVES AT NO COST TO THE COUNTY. I REPEAT NOT ONE PERSON GOT SO MUCH AS ONE EXTRA CENT BECAUSE THIS LINE CHART WAS COMPLETED.
AND I HAVE NEVER SAID I DO NOT SUPPORT THE IDEA OF MUTUAL AID AGREEMENTS. BUT LET US REMEMBER THAT SUCH AGREEMENTS ARE MADE BETWEEN THE WAYNESVILLE CITY COUNCIL AND THE PULASKI COUNTY COMMISSION. THE SHERIFF AND CHIEF ONLY RECOMMEND SUCH AN AGREEMENT. IF CHIEF CARTER EVER PRESENTS SUCH AN AGREEMENT I WILL SUPPORT IT.
JB

okie the thread killer · « **Reply #452 on:** June 09, 2008, 08:49:38 PM »

Thank you JB for clarifying that for people.

Valor7 · « **Reply #453 on:** June 14, 2008, 06:10:46 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #25, Week of June 16 to 20, 2008

Welcome aboard for one more trip around Pulaski County with the Deputies of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. The past week was horrible in one way but great in another. It was horrible because we had a Deputy shot and seriously injured. It was also great because his injury did not present a threat to his life. But had he not been wearing a vest this would be a vastly different story. Two of the shots that hit him would have most likely killed him. And instead of typing today’s column I might have been to a service of the type I hope I never have to attend.

The shooting of Deputy Hayden comes two years and two days after the date our last Deputy was shot. All I can say is that two shooting’s is way more than we needed and the trend is now over I hope.

But this is also the real world and as such today we have every Deputy on the firing range for a refresher course. I finished my daytime qualification a few hours ago and in another three hours I will go back for the night fire course. As the Sheriff I try to put a heavy load of training on the Deputies each year. I can cite dozens of reasons for that but I would think most readers do not need the reasons in order to understand why we train.

I expect that most of you who are reading the column today are looking for inside information about the shooting. And you will not find it here. The reason for that is we must look toward the prosecution of this case and extensive pre-trial publicity is something we need to avoid. So no hard facts about this close range shootout will appear in the column today.

At my request the investigation of this shooting is being handled by the Division of Drug and Crime Control, Missouri State Highway Patrol. The DDCC investigators are not ready to tell us what happened in this case. So far no charge had been filed against the suspect and under my policy I will not name that suspect until a warrant is issued.

I would like to thank the Dixon and Pulaski County Ambulance Service members for the prompt treatment of both parties who were wounded in this shootout. Most readers will know by now that both the Deputy and the suspect were flown to the University Medical Center in Columbia for treatment. I would also like to thank the members of the Dixon Rural Fire Protection District for their help in the medical part of this story. And I would like to give a special word of thanks to their gang of firefighters who stayed behind all morning to light up the crime scene with their lights and generator. If you have ever looked for fired shell cases in tall grass and weeds in the dark then you know how helpful these firefighters were to us. They turned night into day and made the job a whole lot easier and much faster to complete. I would like to repeat my word of thanks again for a Job Well Done to the Dixon Rural Fire Protection District.

In other news our current case number/ calls for service count stands at 4,763 on June 14, 2008, at 5:36pm. At this rate we appear almost certain to break the 10,000 mark this year. The economy is in a recession how about our calls do the same? The jail count today was 72. We have had a few people bond out and a few get sent to the Department of Corrections so the count is starting to drop. The financial tab is still way to high and Pulaski County does not have the money to pay the tab.

I am currently working on acquiring vehicles from two sources but I do not have any positive news to present at this time. The cars would all be used and with close to or over 100,000 miles on them. I have two vehicles that we need to pay off that we financed last year. I would like to pay off at least one this month. This would save us a few dollars because we paid off early and it would also save us from a major expense in early October. We currently owe just under $15,900.00 and the payment must be made from the civil fee fund.

The Missouri Sheriff’s Training Academy graduated a class this past week here in Waynesville. I usually attend the ceremony but this year I was in Columbia with Deputy Hayden. The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department will pick up several new Reserve Deputies from this class. And one of our part time people picked up her POST certification at the ceremony.

I guess I am down to the last news bit for this week. Our May Dispatch totals are now ready for release. We had 6,699 telephone calls. We had 2,231 people at the front window. We had 167 animal calls and 38 domestic cases reported to us. The Dispatch crew found six people at the front window who had an active warrant and they were invited to stay and visit. So once again the Dispatch crew worked hard for the month and did a good job.

I would like to close out the column today by asking all of you to drive very careful and to stay very legal in your actions. As I said last week we do not need your jail business. We cannot afford to pay Miller County so go to jail somewhere else. Our light bulb barely glows this week.

Valor7 · « **Reply #454 on:** June 22, 2008, 12:07:46 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #26, Week of June 23 to 27, 2008

Welcome aboard one more time. As I look out the east window of my house I see sunshine and a nice day. As I look out the north window I see the dark clouds on the horizon creeping closer. Do you think it will rain today? On second thought maybe this does not qualify as humor for the day.

We have had a busy week. It seems like we cannot get caught up with our work load and our numbers are growing smaller each day. We still have one vacant position for the Deputy who quit. We still have a Deputy out due to gunshot wounds. We have another Deputy out on long term work comp due to a work injury. We have one Deputy on limited duty due to an injury suffered in a car wreck off duty. We have one jail position vacant. And now we learn that our chief inmate transport Deputy has entered the hospital due to illness and may not be back for some time. If this trend keeps up our gas expense will drop because their will be nobody left to drive the cars.

We have had a number of shifts lately with only one Deputy on duty and when that happens he gets spread very thin very quickly. If you call we will still try to get there but there may be a wait for service. We are calling the reserves in more frequently to help with calls but this is vacation season for most of the reserves so they are also scarce. We have set up the next interview board to help select the new Deputy to be hired. We have set up another selection process to replace the supervisor who quit so we will be busy for some time to come.

I do have good news for this week. A few weeks ago I had a chance conversation with Greene County Sheriff Jack Merritt. Somehow we got on the subject of patrol vehicles. Jack told me, and may I add he told me with a good deal of pride, that when he leaves office this year his car fleet will be set up to retire cars at 70,000 miles and replace them. So under these circumstances the least I could do was tell him about our shameful car program.

I must have made an impression on him as I cried on the phone because he went to his commissioners and got approval to sell me two cars. Captain Cristoffer and I went to Greene County on Friday and we picked out the two cars. Then to make this story even better I was requested the full payment amount for the cars from the Pulaski County Law Enforcement Restitution Fund. And the Board of Directors for the CLERF fund approved my request. So the bottom line is that we will soon add two “new” cars that only have 109,000 and 114,000 miles on them to our ageing fleet. And this is a good thing because we currently have six cars near the 250,000-mile mark and they need to be scraped soon. The sooner we scrap these cars the better off we will be as a department.

On Thursday I went to the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department for a meeting with the Board of Directors of the Lake Area Narcotic Enforcement Group. For once we had some fair news. Our financial picture has brightened up due to some cash back from seizures that we helped with and it appears the federal and state funding will be just a bit better then we thought. So the entire picture for LANEG is looking better.

There was a bit of bad news. Over the past two years the meth labs across our region have gone down in numbers, way down in numbers. But at this meeting we got reports of a few new labs seized in other counties and every department at the meeting reported an increase in information about the existence of a possible meth lab in their area. So we have the first indications of a possible new trend that we will not enjoy. If any of our readers are aware of a possible lab here in Pulaski County you can dial direct to 573-774-4790 and leave me a message on a line hooked to a recorder.

Over the past 48 hours we have had a stabbing incident with two people in custody and one arson incident with one person in custody. I sent out news releases on these cases and we are waiting for a decision from the Prosecutor’s office as to charges in these incidents.

Our case number count for the week stands at 5,005. So it seems likely that since are not quite at the halfway mark for the year we should break 10,000 cases for 2008. Like I said last week how about a recession in cases for us.

We held our range qualification last week and it was a success. I know that many of the PCERT members had much better scores this year over last year so the extra training they went through seems to have paid off for us. The Deputies had the recent incident were Deputy Hayden was shot to help them concentrate on the training.

Once again I seem to have written my way through a column. I would ask all of you to drive safe and to stay legal. While our jail count has dropped we still do not want your business and our light bulb continues to glow very dimly.

tlh1224 · « **Reply #455 on:** June 22, 2008, 12:36:20 PM »

Thank you JB for everything you and your staff do to keep us informed and safe!!!!
God Bless you all!!!

Lepard LLC · « **Reply #456 on:** June 22, 2008, 05:25:43 PM »

Doh..

Quote from: Valor7 on June 09, 2008, 08:39:34 PM

All we did was put out a simple line chart of the department. For the purpose of the chart all section heads such as the chief jailer or the chief dispatcher were deemed to be Lt's so that all would be on an equal footing at staff meetings. It's called organization.
NOT ONE PERSON WAS ACTUALY PROMOTED AND THE OVERALL COST TO THE CITIZENS OF THE COUNTY WAS $0.00 IN EXTRA SALARY. SEVERAL OF THESE NEW LT'S ARE UNPAID RESERVES WHO SUPERVISE OTHER RESERVES AT NO COST TO THE COUNTY. I REPEAT NOT ONE PERSON GOT SO MUCH AS ONE EXTRA CENT BECAUSE THIS LINE CHART WAS COMPLETED.
AND I HAVE NEVER SAID I DO NOT SUPPORT THE IDEA OF MUTUAL AID AGREEMENTS. BUT LET US REMEMBER THAT SUCH AGREEMENTS ARE MADE BETWEEN THE WAYNESVILLE CITY COUNCIL AND THE PULASKI COUNTY COMMISSION. THE SHERIFF AND CHIEF ONLY RECOMMEND SUCH AN AGREEMENT. IF CHIEF CARTER EVER PRESENTS SUCH AN AGREEMENT I WILL SUPPORT IT.
JB

Valor7 · « **Reply #457 on:** June 29, 2008, 11:18:22 AM »

Sheriff’s View #27, Week of June 30 to July 4, 2008

Welcome aboard for one more trip around the County with the members of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. I hope this will be a trip of peace and extreme quiet. It is a beautiful day outside with no dark clouds on the horizon. I sure hope it stays that way. I feel that this is the perfect week to say Happy Birthday USA! And on another note 145 years ago this week we suffered as a nation during the huge Civil War battle at Gettysburg, PA.

If you get the idea that I am tired and stalling on this week’s column then you are right on the money. My body might be in front of the computer typing away but my mind is still back in the bed trying to catch some more sleep. Over the past 3.5 years I have only missed one column but today almost made number two. And if you are not reading these words in the paper then it is my number two miss.

So lets get to work. Our case number/ calls for service count stands at 5,239 on Sunday morning the 29^th of June. Since we are not quite at the six-month mark that means it will go up a few more numbers before we hit July. So it appears that we are still on track to go over 10,000 calls this year.

And right now that is not a good thing to think about. We have four Deputies on medical leave at this time and one Deputy on limited duty due to an injury. We also have one position that is vacant. That makes six out of the grand total of seventeen possible Deputies. We are in a world of hurt on manpower. I have placed our lone paid Detective back in uniform and he will answer road calls. Our reserves have stepped up to the plate to help and I hope they can continue because we have another problem with manpower right now. The suspect who shot Deputy Hayden was taken into custody this week. He had been released from the ICU unit at the University Hospital in Columbia and was free to walk the floor. Which also means he was free to walk out the door so we had a warrant issued and he is now under guard. With our limited manpower and a 250 mile round trip for the Deputies I can just see the fun we are going to have with this detail.

But we had no choice in the matter. So about the only thing we can do is work on ways to make this detail work out better or figure out another solution. While we are on the topic of the reserves we had a meeting with the reserves this past week to seek more support from them. I also announced that a number of reserves we have not seen in a long time are having their Commissions revoked. All of the reserves that we have commissioned have promised me that they would help the department work and if they have failed to do that for a long period of time without an explanation then I see no reason to continue their Commission. So the reserve Deputy list will be trimmed soon.

We do have a great piece of good news this week. On Friday, Capt. Cristoffer took two Deputies to Springfield and came back with a pair of 2003 Ford Crown Victoria patrol cars. One had 109,000 miles and one has 114,000 miles. Both had some equipment left in the car so we got a bit of a bonus. They appear to be solid cars and the few Deputies we have left are already making comments about how good they would look in that new car. I would like to thank the Board of Directors of the County Law Enforcement Restitution Fund for their solid support in this purchase. I say solid because they paid the whole bill on this purchase. I am not sure how much time Capt. Cristoffer will need to get these cars up and running but I am sure it will be a few weeks at least. With the Fourth of July celebration coming up, our shortage of manpower in general and the Columbia guard detail in particular, it is going to be rough the next few weeks.

I had a question from a reader about the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department website. And your answer is that there are a number of very useful links that have been added to our site. We have listed a link to all Missouri law statutes, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, and the Missouri Department of Public Safety. You can access a lot of good information on our site. As an example if use our link and you log on to the AG’s site you will find a tab on the AG’s site that will give you the nationwide concealed carry reciprocity from the other states of the Union. We also have listed our local sex offender registry. We even put a history of our new uniform shoulder patch on the site. So I think this is a valuable site to be aware of and to use.

I also had a number of questions about the Brian Haggard case. Mr. Haggard was charged with shooting another man on April 30, 2008, on Thames Lane just outside of St. Robert. Haggard had been arrested in Lebanon this past week after he was involved in a motor vehicle crash. His parole has been revoked and he was sent to DOC this week. When he is needed for court here we will have to Writ him down from DOC.

And I think I made it to the end of the column. Now all I have to do is get it sent out to the media stations. I would ask that all of you drive very safe this week and keep your actions very legal. We do not have room for you, heck we may not have the manpower to arrest you, and we sure do not want your business. If you must go to jail please pick another County. Our light bulb is barely glowing.

Nitric · « **Reply #458 on:** June 30, 2008, 11:36:28 AM »

I don't understand why our Sherriff would tell the public that he may not have the manpower to arrest the bad guys. I know that letting the public know what is hapeening in the PCSD has created a lot of support both for him and the dept. but it also encourages the bad guys to do bad things cause they know what the lack of manpower is. Could this be why the increase in calls and more serious crimes are from?

okie the thread killer · « **Reply #459 on:** June 30, 2008, 11:46:09 AM »

Do the bad guys really read the newspapers and internet forums? Somehow I doubt it, but I guess it's possible.

Nitric · « **Reply #460 on:** June 30, 2008, 11:49:55 AM »

Even if they don't read it, people who do talk about it. they have friends and everyone talkes.

And why has it taken so long to pull commissions from those who don't put in their time. The commissions have been saying for ages that you got plenty of reserves, so use them instead of telling us you knead more cops.

Law101 · « **Reply #461 on:** June 30, 2008, 01:13:12 PM »

I used to be one of those who felt that Big Piney didn't get the timely response from the PCSD that we felt we should get. It was only after finding this website and reading what J.B. had to say that I understood it was a lack of manpower rather than lack of interest in my corner of the County.

I think the entire County is aware of how short staffed the PCSD is, so it probably doesn't make a lot of difference what he posted. Of course I would be upset if he were to post exactly what shifts have the least coverage.

exclusive · « **Reply #462 on:** June 30, 2008, 01:42:10 PM »

A question to the Sheriff, Is it not true that you have more than one position open, even if it is temporary? You have two deputies out on workmans comp and one deputy that left for another department, a transport officer that moved to the jail. When will you be hiring for those positions?

Valor7 · « **Reply #463 on:** June 30, 2008, 07:39:16 PM »

Quote from: Nitric on June 30, 2008, 11:36:28 AM

I don't understand why our Sherriff would tell the public that he may not have the manpower to arrest the bad guys. I know that letting the public know what is hapeening in the PCSD has created a lot of support both for him and the dept. but it also encourages the bad guys to do bad things cause they know what the lack of manpower is. Could this be why the increase in calls and more serious crimes are from?

The triple increase in calls over the past 3 years was a result of this weeks column?

JB

Valor7 · « **Reply #464 on:** June 30, 2008, 07:44:35 PM »

Quote from: exclusive on June 30, 2008, 01:42:10 PM

A question to the Sheriff, Is it not true that you have more than one position open, even if it is temporary? You have two deputies out on workmans comp and one deputy that left for another department, a transport officer that moved to the jail. When will you be hiring for those positions?

Not exactly, the position of the one officer who left was filled by a Deputy who got shot 3 days later. So I have two on extended work comp. Can I fill these with the understanding that they might be temporary? Yes I can. All I have to do is find someone X2 who will take a fulltime temporary job. The part time jail transport/hospital guard position is open.

JB

Valor7 · « **Reply #465 on:** July 06, 2008, 11:52:36 AM »

The Sheriff’s View #28, Week of July 7 to 11, 2008

Welcome aboard one more time. I hope the thrills and chills in this column are enjoyable to read. Frankly I hope this will be a column since I am going to have to stretch the info at hand because I seem to have a horrible case of writers block this morning. And that usually means a shorter column.

We actually had a fairly quiet week this past week. A quiet workweek except for the constant boom, boom, boom, of the fireworks here in Pulaski County. I have to tell you that road patrol and our sudden middle of the night house calls over the 4^th of July sometimes get tense due to sudden boom’s. Hopefully none of my Deputies returned fire. I will admit that in past years I have had some real “scares” on very short notice due to fireworks.

Of course there are other “scares” that can suddenly occur. I recall one time when I was searching on foot by myself through a trailer park at 3:00 am for an armed robber who had just abandoned his stolen car after we had a short vehicle pursuit. It was so quiet that you could hear a mouse breathe from at least twenty yards away. As the bad guy and I played cat and mouse in the very dark and extremely quiet night I suddenly………...flushed an 800 pound rabbit that thumped away from me with thumps that could have been heard from a distance of five city blocks. The only good news was that my shotgun did not make a loud noise. If you are a deer hunter who has walked under a tree full of turkeys in the dark then you will understand this story. But then again the turkeys cannot shoot you.

OK, lets get down to business. Our calls for service/ case number count for this week is 5,443. What can I say business is smashing! And in more ways than you might expect. When I called dispatch for the latest number just now they told me that while our Deputies were on an assist with the Waynesville City Police last night a very combative subject Waynesville had arrested kicked out one of the back windows in our patrol car. So I suspect we shall have to replace some window glass. Do you think it will rain soon?

Speaking of cars Capt. Cristoffer has started to work on the two newer cars that we got from Greene County. They are both silver Ford crown Victoria’s and I hope he is able to put them on the road soon. They look good and the Deputies who drove them here from Springfield said they seem to be in fine shape.

We are still short a number of Deputies due to wounds, illness, accident, and resignations. We had another Deputy resign this past week. We expect the Deputy who was hurt in the car wreck to be released for full duty this next week so we get one back. We are also convening a hiring board this week to interview the prospective new hires whose applications we have on hand. Hopefully at least one of them will be suitable for employment.

As for the rest we just need time to heal. We hope to have our full time transport Deputy back in two weeks. We are also looking at some short-term hire for a temporary fill position. If anyone is interested in working as a full time or part time Deputy please drop us a line soon or call 573-774-6196 for more information. We are also looking for a full time jailor position and a part time jail hospital guard/transport position.

I had a reader ask for more information on the MODOT traffic safety grant that I mentioned last week. As part of this grant we were able to purchase two new radar units for $2,100.00 and that money will be repaid in full under the terms of the grant. We also can work 100 hours of paid overtime for the Deputies. These 100 hours must be spent doing traffic enforcement work. We shall be repaid fully for the overtime salary.

The big question is why are we doing this? As part of the grant application we had to submit our Pulaski County crash date for the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. These figures were for the unincorporated portion of Pulaski County. The numbers are scary. They crash numbers start off with 23 people killed on our roads in three years. Another 521 people were injured. We had 369 accidents with a personal injury involved. We had another 804 property damage accidents. That is a total of 1,173 traffic accidents in three years. And that is only for the rural area of the County outside the cities. We have a huge problem and the local MSHP Troopers need some help.

But there is another side to this effort to save our Pulaski County citizens from injury in a traffic crash. When you work a lot of traffic you tend to interrupt drug dealers transporting their goods to other suppliers. You find lots of people with all kinds of warrants. You recover stolen cars, firearms, and other property. In short you do all kinds of law enforcement work other than traffic law enforcement. Part of our upcoming traffic enforcement will be on I-44 and I hope to find some large dope loads that we can seize. If we seize a large load with the help of the DEA we may be able to seize other drug-financed assets that can come back to our department to help us with critical equipment issues. So I view the upcoming traffic enforcement detail as a win-win situation for the Sheriff’s Department and for Pulaski County.

I seem to have reached the end of another column and except for the 800-pound rabbit story, which was a true story, I hope this column was worth reading. Please drive safely and please stay legal. Our jail numbers are down just a bit but we still do not want your business. The light bulb still glows.

Valor7 · « **Reply #466 on:** July 06, 2008, 11:57:01 AM »

Quote from: okie on June 30, 2008, 11:46:09 AM

Do the bad guys really read the newspapers and internet forums? Somehow I doubt it, but I guess it's possible.

No but they all listen to the scanner and it does not take long to understand that we are short. So I might as well speak the truth.
JB

Sheriff J. B. King · « **Reply #467 on:** July 13, 2008, 11:42:29 AM »

The Sheriff’s View #29, Week of July 14 to 18, 2008

Welcome aboard on a bright hot sunny day. See how quick we miss the rain! We have had a busy week and I have a number of things to write about. Hopefully I can keep the column interesting this week.

We shall start off with the latest dispatch number and as of a few minutes ago that number was 5,669. What can I say it continues to look like we shall break 10,000 calls for service or jobs whichever way you want to think of that before the year is over. We have the dispatch totals for June ready to go and we had a total of 6,037 telephone calls. We had 2,431 people at the front window. We had 108 animal calls, 42 domestic violence calls and the dispatch crew picked off 6 more arrest warrants at the front window.

At the half waypoint in the year the dispatch totals for 2008 are as follows. We have had 45,653 telephone calls. We have had 15,933 people at the front window. We have had 756 animal calls. We have had 252 domestics. And the warrant total was 57 for the first half of 2008. I think I can say that our dispatch crew does earn their pay. Those would be fairly respectable totals for many Sheriff’s Departments for the entire year.

I have one bit of good news I did pay off one of our outstanding car loans this past week and I am happy to say that the Detective vehicle now belongs to us completely. The bank no longer has a lien on the vehicle. With a little bit of luck in about three weeks I shall have the necessary money in the civil fee account to pay off the jail van.

Actually I have more than one bit of good news. One of our wounded warriors has recovered from his car crash and has returned to full duty so our manpower pinch has eased just a tiny little bit. We have hired a new Deputy to replace Deputy John Durbin who resigned from the department last week. Deputy Kevin White will start this week. And our transport Deputy Steve Crews told me this past week that he would probably return to full duty about July 25, 2008. So things are starting to improve. It has been a long time since we were at full strength all across the board.

The Commissioners reviewed our budget this past week. I believe they decided that we are $107,000.00 over budget at this time. There are two main factors that have led to that figure and both are items that neither the Commissioners nor I can control. The first item is directly related to our success rate in investigating serious criminal cases that can be prosecuted. This leads to a more crowded jail and since we are forced to house our inmates out of county at $35.00 per day that leads too much more cost. Way more cost than the Commissioners budgeted for at the start of the year. I would love to give you the current budget figures but the 2008 budget folder is at the office and I am working at home right now. I will try to remember to quote some budget figures in next week’s column.

We had an interesting evening on Thursday of last week. We only had two Deputies on duty around the 6:30pm time frame. One Deputy had been working on a residence burglary and had just made an arrest. He had the suspect in his vehicle and was recovering stolen property from this case. All was well until suddenly the 911 Communications Center received a call that a person was trying to enter a window of a residence on Rocky Mount Road in the Buckhorn area.

Our lone remaining Deputy responded to the scene and surprised the burglar who promptly fled on foot. Our Deputy advised us he was in a foot pursuit and things suddenly got real intense. We immediately did a number of things to get him some more help. We called out three Deputies who live near that area. We asked the Waynesville City Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol for help. Mean while the foot pursuit turned into a combination of a foot pursuit and a period of hide and go seek in the woods. But after about twenty frantic minutes our lone Deputy was able to flush the suspect out of the woods. As the suspect tried to cross over Rocky Mount Road he ran right into a local MSHP Trooper who was able to put a stop to the Olympic games. The Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney filed burglary charges in both of these cases.

After last week’s column I had one question asked about the finances behind the MODOT safety grant. We were given $2,118.00 to purchase two new radar units and we went with the dual head Stalker radar units. That is the basic radar unit that you see in most of our local police cars. We were also given 100 hours of paid overtime for the Deputies to work on traffic enforcement. The overtime money will amount to about $1,700.00 and we will be repaid by the state in full for both finance amounts.

I seem to be out of space once again so I shall close out the column for this week. Please drive careful and please stay very legal. We are way over on jail expense this year and we do not want your business. Go somewhere else and visit their jail. Our poor battered light bulb is barely glowing.

Valor7 · « **Reply #468 on:** July 20, 2008, 05:06:51 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #30, Week of July 21 to 25, 2008.

Welcome aboard for one very hot trip around Pulaski County with the very hot and tired Deputies of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. We are hot due to the weather. We are tired due to back to back to back-to-back calls. Lately the telephone has been ringing off the hook and every call seems to bring action. We are ready for a recession in work. But I do not think it will work that way.

Where to start for this week? I think we shall move to the calls for service/job assignments column and as of 3:50pm on 7-20-08 we stand at 5,920 calls for service. Since we are just over the half way point for the year we appear to be certain to break the 10,000 mark for the year.

With the weather as hot as it has been I would like to issue a word of caution to people. If you are parking your car for a period of time please make sure the children and pets are out of the vehicle. In this heat it will not take long for a tragic event to occur should you leave a child or pet in the car. Likewise do not leave them in a running car unless an adult is present to safeguard their health and well-being. I can assure you that if my Deputy pulls up to a call scene and finds a locked non-running car with a child that will not respond to noise then you will be replacing some window glass. You may even win a trip to Circuit Court.

I have one piece of good news this week. Elvis has returned to the building. Or in easy to understand words our former Chief Dispatcher who quit in January of this year to help his wife run the family business has been persuaded to return to our ranks. So you will hear Bruce on the radio once again. He will replace one of our veteran dispatchers who moved to the St. Robert City Police Department dispatch. I did not know how much fun it could be to hire a new dispatcher and NOT have to complete a training period.

As I am typing away on the computer at home working on this column our Deputies are busy once again. It sounds like they just located a stolen vehicle that was sunk in the Gasconade River back in March of this year. They are looking for a scuba diver who can take a tow cable down to the car and hook it up for removal. And it sounds like one of our local Conservation Agents just volunteered to make this dive. So we should have a vehicle recovery under way shortly.

We have had a lot of work lately in the area of civil process. We have been swamped with paper work and our main process server has been absent for medical reasons. With all of the other Deputies we currently have out of service it has been hard to keep up with the demands of the paper service. I had asked for an addition to the manpower totals for the last three budget years to assist with the process service but that part of the budget was never granted by the Commissioners.

Our problem is that we have a civil process division and a criminal process division but both divisions send all of the paperwork to one Deputy for service. On Friday of this week I asked for some paper totals to get an idea of where we stood on this issue. The civil process clerk was gone so all I got for totals came from the Criminal process side. As of the end of the business day on June 30, 2008, we had processed 981 criminal summons and subpoenas. We had also processed 850 warrants during this period. So for one half year on the criminal side alone we had 1,831 pieces of paper we had to take out into the world and attach to a person. The bad news is that the criminal side is usually the slow side. I will try to obtain the civil side numbers and remember to report on them next week.

I had promised last week that I would bring home some budget figures and pass them on to you this week. Well the good news for you is that the old man’s memory failed and the budget figures are still at the office so you are safe this week. No boring stuff to read. Many of you have told me that while you realize that the budget figures are important to understanding how the department operates, the budget figures are not your favorite reading material.

We continue to struggle with manpower issues. We still have four Deputies out on work comp or sick leave status. We have one new Deputy in training. All I can say here is thank you to the reserve Deputies for they have come to the plate and swung the bat for us very well the past few weeks.

I seem to have reached the end of another column. I would ask that all of you drive very careful and stay very legal in your actions. We still do not have room at the Inn and we still do not want you. If you must go to jail pick another County. Our light bulb continues to glow with a very faint light.

Valor7 · « **Reply #469 on:** July 27, 2008, 04:19:11 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #31, Week of July 28 to Aug. 1, 2008

Welcome aboard for one more trip around Pulaski County with the Deputies of the PCSD. After yesterday’s visit to the Waynesville City Park for Old Settlers Day I have renewed my appreciation for the wonders of modern air conditioning. It seemed that the humidity was so high in the park you could drown if you opened your mouth. Long live AC! We had a busy week and I have a lot to cover so I better get started.

The calls for service/case number count stands at 6,162 at 2:46pm on July 27, 2008. It continues to climb. We still have three Deputies out on extended sick leave. We did however welcome back Sgt. Steve Crews from his extended sick leave “vacation.” The “new guy” that we just hired continues to train. We did hold interview boards for the applications on hand last week and the new jail staff starts to work soon for their training period. So slowly we are climbing back up on manpower.

We have a sniff of good news this week. I received an E-mail telling me we have been awarded another MODOT highway safety grant and the letter with the details is in the mail. This is a bit like the lotto scams that are always going on the Internet except that the E-mail did come from the correct IP address so YES, we have won the lotto! We just are going to have to wait for the letter to find out how lucky we were with this latest grant. I promise I will pass the good news on as soon as I can when the letter does arrive.

Our next topic we did not win, we lost. We had a short-lived but powerful thunderstorm sweep through Waynesville on Friday evening and the city lost power downtown. Which put the Sheriff’s Department out of business until we could get our antique generator started. But it would not start, and then when it did start it would not keep running. By the time the power was restored the electric surges had kicked open breakers everywhere and we stayed out of business. We did not get back up and fully running immediately. We had to continue to fight a number of problems and it was noon on Saturday before we were back up to full speed. We need a new generator, not just for the Sheriff’s Department but also for the entire courthouse. I know that I have mentioned this before in the column.

There was a ray of good news here, Commissioner Bill Farnham came down to our office to assist with the power struggle and he got a real good look at our problems with the old generator. Commissioner Farnham had asked for a study some time back on the electric demand for the entire courthouse. We had not yet received that study and things were looking grim at this point with no hope in sight. But I ran into Commissioner Farnham on Saturday and he told the he had just found out that the actual report was done. We just did not have our copy yet. Farnham plans to build a fire under some folks and get us the report. Then he has a contact lined up at the USDA for a possible grant to help us out. So just maybe if Farnham keeps on pushing we might be able to advance one giant step before the year is over.

And then there was another bad bit of news over this incident. The head of the Waynesville Electrical Department dropped by after power was restored to see why we were still down. After looking our entire dispatch office power supply over Gary told me that we needed an immediate detailed investigation by a good electrical contractor into the mystery of our power lines, circuits, breaker boxes and the whole nine yards. Gary told me that the years and years of new equipment and “cobbling things together” have probably over booked the dispatch center in the electrical field. Gary also said we need that electrical review investigation real soon or we might have some major problems. So we now have one more “old” problem to fix. In any event my employees on duty Friday night told me to be sure and thank Commissioner Farnham for his help, so thanks Bill!

And we have another bit of good news. On Thursday I paid off the 2005 Ford jail van. This was the vehicle that the CLERF Board of Directors were gracious enough to make the down payment on and all I had to do was make one payment of $7.318.33 to settle the debt. The 2005 Ford Van was the last car on the list to be paid off from the civil fee fund this year. We now own all of our cars outright. Of course next year we shall have to start over because the number of Patrol cars we now have that are at or over the 250,000-mile mark continues to grow.

I understand an enterprising Sheriff in Arkansas has opened the way for his local business owners to buy advertising space on his Patrol cars for a nice donation. I am at the point where I think I would be quite happy to paint on the side of our new car, “Furnished by Joe Smith Motor Company”. Hey Joe are you listening?

We have been advised of a number of major trials in our circuit court that are scheduled over the next few months. And I saw on KOLR-10 a few days ago that we are going to get a real high profile murder case from the southwest part of the state on a change of venue. So it looks like the bailiff duties shall continue to grow for us. In order to properly monitor a major trial you need a number of bailiffs to be assigned to the case full time.

I think I have written my way to another completed column. Once again I would ask that you please drive safely. We had another fatal vehicle accident this past week so please concentrate on your driving. I would also ask that you keep your actions legal. Our jail count has dropped just a bit but we still cannot afford your stay in our jail so please pick another County if you must go to jail. Our light bulb continues to glow.

Valor7 · « **Reply #470 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:02:01 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #32, Week of Aug. 4 to 8, 2008

Welcome aboard one more time for a trip around Pulaski County with the sun dried Deputies of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department. Make that sun dried, baked, and maybe even fried Deputy. You have not enjoyed life until you have run around outside in a Missouri August wearing a Kevlar vest. But with two deputies shot in the last two years the vest is not a real option anymore, it is more of a necessity. Our Deputies are much more survival conscious and they are not taking any chances. In other words welcome to the big city and all of the associated problems that come with big city life.

And there will be a few problems when the big city clashes with rural Pulaski County old-fashioned ways. I would like to ask all readers to remember and consider the fact that Pulaski County is not the same old friendly place it used to be we have changed for the worse in many ways. I can assure you that the working deputies understand that change.

Speaking of change. I would like to warn all the residents of the Hunter’s Point area and the residents of the Target and Trolley Road area in Pulaski County that we seem to have some nice folks entering unlocked cars and hauling away things that do not belong to them. If you live in those neighborhood’s you might want to lock your cars and keep an eye on them. If you happen to spot a suspect please give us a call. And we would love to have a description of a suspect or a nice license plate number to work with so keep your eyes open and keep a writing pad handy.

A column or so back I promised you that I would reveal the civil paper totals for the department. During 2007 we had a total of 2,364 civil papers to serve. We also had 771 orders of protection to serve. This totals out at 3,135 civil papers on the civil side for all of 2007. However I failed to get the criminal paper numbers for all of 2007 so the only comparison I can make today is that for the first half or 2008. From 1-1-08 to 6-30-08 the civil paper side has had a total of 1704 papers. The criminal side for the first half of 2008 was 1,831. The total for the first half of this year would be 3,535. So the projected total for 2008 would be 7,070 papers and remember they all come back to one person to serve. Or in simple terms we need at least one more full time paper server.

The case number/call for service number stands at 6,363 today. The calls just continue to mount. I also have the July Dispatch numbers today. We had 5,903 telephone calls and we had 1,682 people at the front window. We also had 75 animal calls, 33 domestic violence calls and 11 arrests at the front window. For the first seven months of 2008 we have had 51,556 telephone calls in dispatch. And we had 17,615 people at the front window. I believe these types of numbers help explain why dispatch is slow to answer the phone most days because they are swamped.

We have had a busy week otherwise. Our two new jail staff members are now in training full time. I have changed our system around some. We no longer allow the new people to train on the job. We have set up a standard training school for one week that they must pass before we let them in the jail to continue the advanced training. It seems to have paid off on the last new employee training cycle so we shall see how this cycle goes. We had to supply extra bailiffs this week for several days. Capt. Cristoffer had several broken car problems to cure. The good Captain also got ambitious and was trying to clean out one of our basement storerooms. And the Commissioners have asked me to develop a new leave time policy for the department and I am working on that in my “spare time.”

On Wednesday the Missouri State Highway Patrol asked for some help with a project and the only Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department person left without an active job assignment at that specific minute was the big bad Sheriff. So I took the call and shortly there after I found myself standing in a very nice marihuana patch. The operation took about four hours to complete and we gathered 38 plants that were up to 11 feet tall. We ended up with one arrest out of this project. What can I say it felt good to do some actual police work for once instead of pushing paper around or doing bailiff work or going to some boring meeting. I could have done without the ticks but that’s part of life in the marihuana patch.

On Thursday night our PCERT team was called out for a suspect who had a gun and was locked inside his home. The incident had started out as a domestic assault disturbance with drinking involved. As we worked the case we came to the conclusion that we probably did not have a major crime on our hands and a forced entry into the residence was not going to happen. We were concerned for the mental status of the suspect with regard to harm to his own life. We were still working on understanding that issue when one of the Deputies on the outer perimeter detected the suspect walking in the dark, with a gun, and was able to sneak up on him and take him into custody. Nobody got hurt and all ended well. I was proud the team and the restraint they showed in this case. As many SWAT teams have learned in a bad way the lesson of restraint is a big issue if it is not used when necessary.

I believe that once again I have written my way through another column. I would ask all of you to drive very careful and stay very legal. Despite the fact our jail list has dropped to about 59 inmates we do not want and cannot afford your jail business. Please go elsewhere if you must go to jail. This week our light bulb glows slightly brighter.

Law101 · « **Reply #471 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:15:12 PM »

Does Pulaski County have an organized neighborhood watch system in place? If so who is in charge of it. If not, how do we get one organized?

Valor7 · « **Reply #472 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:21:30 PM »

Quote from: Law101 on August 03, 2008, 12:15:12 PM

Does Pulaski County have an organized neighborhood watch system in place? If so who is in charge of it. If not, how do we get one organized?

Capt. Cristoffer handles that issue and we have a number of them set up at this time. Each watch group is a self contained unit for their neighborhood.

JB

Geezer Glide Taz · « **Reply #473 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:27:02 PM »

Because I am such a helpful citizen, I have a large pile of limbs and stuff I need to burn, you can bring all those plants over and I will burn them with it, but only as a concerned citizen.

Valor7 · « **Reply #474 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:42:06 PM »

Quote from: Geezer Glide Taz on August 03, 2008, 12:27:02 PM

Because I am such a helpful citizen, I have a large pile of limbs and stuff I need to burn, you can bring all those plants over and I will burn them with it, but only as a concerned citizen.

Next thing I know you will bill this as an election eve rally!!! Vote for .......... I cannot remember his name I just want to sleep! Oh ya we are off and running with this one!

okie the thread killer · « **Reply #475 on:** August 03, 2008, 12:48:18 PM »

Only because I love the sight of a bonfire, would you call me when you get ready to burn. I would bring chips and wine.

Geezer Glide Taz · « **Reply #476 on:** August 03, 2008, 02:09:26 PM »

Oh great idea, lets call this, "JB elections party, we are going to burn out crime"

Can you also bring salsa....lots and lots of salsa

okie the thread killer · « **Reply #477 on:** August 03, 2008, 02:12:06 PM »

lol. Lots and lots and lots of salsa. Have to check the stores for Boone's Farm, tho.

Valor7 · « **Reply #478 on:** August 10, 2008, 12:19:23 PM »

The Sheriff’s View #33, Week of Aug. 11 to 15, 2008.

Welcome aboard one more time. It appears to be a nice day and things have been halfway quiet and safe. We had our usual round of extra bailiff duty this past week and the usual number of calls for service. Hopefully I can round up sufficient information for this column.

If I did the math correctly this is column number 188 since I took office as sheriff. I will admit that so far it seems to be feast or famine when it comes to the news I can pass along. Some weeks I have to leave things out and some weeks it seems that I cannot find any information to pass along. I try hard because I know that many of you do appreciate the flow of news about the department.

The last few days have been busy. We had an incident Friday night where we made a car stop near the Riddle Bridge area and two subjects fled the car on foot. We did a mini-manhunt and could not find them but it does not matter, the deputy was already on a first name basis with both of them so running did not help hide their identity. We found what appears to have been the start of a meth lab kit. We will refer the case to the PA for possible action.

Then on Saturday night we had another incident near Dixon. A vehicle tried to slip away from one of our deputies. They wrecked the vehicle after a short semi-pursuit and a true mobile meth lab was found in this vehicle. We have one person in jail this morning on a 24-hour hold .The Prosecuting Attorney will drop by the courthouse to make a decision on the filing of charges later today. I will release full details after the PA makes her decision.

At our last Lake Area Narcotic Enforcement Group (LANEG) meeting we had discussed a small upswing in meth lab related seizures throughout all of the counties that make up the LANEG zone of enforcement. All of the other counties around us had one or two seizures for this year except for Pulaski County. It appears the statistical nature of life may have caught up with us in one weekend.

In other news the calls for service/case number count went to 6,607 this week. We continue to climb in numbers and we continue to have two deputies on duty to respond. Our reserve force has continued to step up to help us and we do appreciate the free work we get from them. We have some very fine officers in our reserve force.

In last week’s column I wrote about the PCERT call out and the capture of the suspect. I was called to task on this one because at least one person thought I made the actual arrest sound like some kind of cowboy operation or maybe a better phrase would be foolhardy capture. I would like to make sure that everyone understands that the deputy who made the arrest did so from a position of advantage and was very professional.

As most of you know I have been asking for and pushing for a generator to run not only the sheriff’s department but also the entire courthouse on an emergency basis. Commissioner Farnham has been working on this issue and this past week he met with several other people who would be involved with the purchase. They reviewed some bid proposals and frankly the bids for the generator came in at a much lower cost than I had expected. I had to leave the courthouse on another mission so I did not get the final update on the meeting. Hopefully we have started down the path to a new generator.

Our new employees in the jail finished their one-week training course and they are now doing advanced training on the job. Hopefully they will be able to go solo soon and we can slow down the overtime work rate in the jail. We have another round of improvements for the jail that we are working on and I believe the bid notices were sent out last week.

Capt. Cristoffer reports that it has been way to hot in his non air-conditioned shop to install the radios and other equipment in our two new cars. He can only work for short periods before he has to stop so it is going to take a little longer to get the recently purchased Greene County Sheriff’s cars converted over to our use.

I have good news and bad news about the MODOT traffic safety grant. As you will remember I was waiting for the letter to arrive that would tell us what we had received for this grant. Well we got the letter and the money total was nice but the details on exactly what we were awarded will not be given to us until we complete a MODOT workshop in Springfield, Missouri, on Aug. 28, 2008. So we get to wait a little longer.

I would like to remind everyone that business continues as usual. Our jail list is in the low sixties. We still do not have the money needed to house you in the jail so we will again request that if you must go to jail please pick another county. Please continue to drive careful and stay very legal. Our poor overworked light bulb continues to barely glow.

Rainbow · « **Reply #479 on:** August 10, 2008, 01:12:16 PM »

A mobile met lab in Dixon,,,who would've thunked that!

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Author Topic: Sneak Peek Sheriff's View (Read 58506 times)

Sheriff J. B. King