Police Chief Chat

This past week, the Rolla Police Department handled handled 724 calls for service. Of these calls there were: 14 arrests, 9 alarms, 27 accidents, 39 traffic complaints, 84 traffic stops, 22 disturbance (including domestics), 17 check well being, 13 suspicious nature, 24 assists of other agencies, 1 malicious mischief,26 animal control, 17 stealing, 7 escort, 2 assault reports and 3 littering complaints. This call total is up 63 calls from last week to include a church fire, an apparent suicide, multiple search warrants and several meth and heroin arrests! Yet another busy week!

On Monday, April 10, 2011 Mayor Bill Jenks visited the Rolla Police Department and presented a Letter of Appreciation to our newly formed Street Crimes Unit. The Street Crimes Unit consists of Senior Patrol Officer Luke Kearse and Senior Patrol Officer Josh Campbell. The unit was formed in January 2011 and has made a great impact in ...the area of drug enforcement and crime fighting. Officers Kearse and Campbell have been extremely successful in combating illegal drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin and have made several arrests in targeted high crime areas. Their hard work, dedication and innovative tactics have proved very successful in clearing our streets of drug dealing criminals. The Street Crimes Unit works closely with our Patrol Division, our Criminal Investigation Unit, the Mayors Community Action Team and the South Central Drug Task Force in a concerted effort to keep the community safe.

This past week was a bit crowded with dedications in that it was National Volunteer Week, National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week and Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week. For National Volunteer Week it is fitting that we thank the greatest, most dedicated group of volunteers that you could find anywhere—our Volunteers In Police Services! The folks who volunteer their time in our VIPS program, have given RPD and the citizens of Rolla thousands of hours of their personal time and they do so without ever looking for thanks or a pat on the back. They are the best, and we are grateful for their devoted and enthusiastic service. Again, THANK YOU VIPS!

For National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week we pay homage to the men and women in our Central Dispatch Division who like other telecommunicators across the country, every day, every hour, in communities large and small, dedicated public safety telecommunicators sit waiting to answer your calls. They are professional men and women, trained to remain calm when everything seems to be falling apart. They gather information from callers; prioritize the requests and then dispatch the appropriate police, fire or medical personnel (or sometimes all three!) to assist. This may sound simple enough, except that most of their callers are people in crisis; a crying parent, a petrified child, an apathetic neighbor or a belligerent abuser. Communicators must be on constant alert; every phone call is an opportunity to ride the emotional roller coaster, from parking complaints to an infant not breathing. In 1992 U.S. Congress declared the second week of April as National Telecommunicator Week. This week affords us the opportunity to say “Thank you” to these hard working, dedicated, multi-talented public servants. Communicators are a vital link within our community and are essential to the mission of public safety, although rarely appreciated because they are not physically at the scene. This week we would like to show our gratitude to these people who work behind the scenes to keep the citizens of our community safe.

This week is also Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week as proclaimed by the National Animal Control Association. NACA and the Rolla Police Department would like to show our appreciation and give recognition to the hard working men and women in our Animal Control Division who risk their lives and spend huge amounts of personnel resources, including time away from family and friends while serving the community. Take time this week to stop by our shelter and say hello to our ACO's! Congratulations to all the men and women in each of these fine divisions. You are truly appreciated!

On Thursday, April 14, 2011, the Rolla Police Department and the Phelps County Anti-Drug Committee teamed up and launched the “”Not in my Neighborhood” campaign where yard signs were handed out to members of the community who feel strongly about taking back their neighborhoods and sending a strong message that crime and illegal drug activity will be reported. The Rolla Public Schools allowed us to infiltrate the long line of parents delivering the children to school on Thursday to pass out the yard signs. I am proud to say that every sign we had available was taken and we even had to re-stock some signs for those that were unable to pick theirs up at the schools. We do want to apologize for the extra time spent dropping off your students, but we thought this opportunity would be a great way to get the signs to the community. My wife Dee and I were assigned Truman Elementary School as our distribution point where we were met with enthusiasm and support. Thank you for helping us launch this great campaign.

Sadly, on Thursday night at approximately 10:10 p.m., Central Communications received a 911 call regarding a subject who reportedly jumped off of the US 63 overpass of I-44 and was struck by westbound I-44 traffic. Responding law enforcement located a male subject in the roadway who was deceased. The victim was identified as Erick Cummings age 18 of Cole Camp, MO who resided in Rolla while attending school. Erick Cummings’ next of kin has been notified. The circumstances surrounding the death are being investigated by the Rolla Police Department’s Division of Criminal Investigations and the Phelps County Coroner’s Office. If you have additional information pertaining to this case please call Detective Ken Nakanishi at the Rolla Police Department at (573) 308-1213 or the Rolla Police Department’s confidential tip hotline at (573) 364-0111. Our prayers go out to this young man and to his friends and family.

This past week we had the opportunity to meet newly appointed Ward 2 Councilman Greg Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer stopped in to introduce himself and to make a donation to the Behind the Badge Organization. While he was here he took a tour of the building and met with several members of our RPD team. Thanks for stopping by and special thanks for the donation.

In closing, Thursday night I accompanied the Street Crimes Unit to a residence where various illegal drugs were being used and sold. There were seven people in the house upon our arrival, but when we knocked on the front door three people ran out the back of the residence and were immediately apprehended The part of this story I want to share is that we treated all the suspects in a professional manner and they treated us the same. During a search of the residence the team heroin, needles, marijuana and other drug related items. I had the opportunity to speak with one female suspect who told me that she was addicted to heroin for nearly a year until she was able to get treatment. This female was from a larger city during the extent of her addiction. I also spoke with a young male suspect who told me he has been addicted to heroin for nearly 6 months. This male stated that his addiction cost him his family his career and his home. He admits that he feels like a failure and wants to stop. This individual told me that he has to shoot heroin in his veins everyday or he becomes violently ill. He says that his heroin addiction has taken over his life. His downward spiral started with pills, but when they became unavailable he switched to heroin and became addicted. This addiction has changed his life. He does not have insurance and does not have the money needed to get into a treatment program. I asked him if he wanted help and he stated that he did. He and I exchanged phone numbers and I promised him I would get him help and would be calling him very soon. My heart goes out to this young man and there are so many out there like him. He needs help, but we cannot allow people to get others hooked on the drugs either, so there is no easy answer. This past Tuesday Mayor Bill Jenks launched his Community Action Team with a meeting of counselors, ministers, and other civic minded people. We would like to establish clinics here in Rolla to help heroin and meth addicts. If we don’t, it is going to get a lot worse and it’s bad enough already. We want to be able to help these people, and that help may come in the form of an arrest, a short time in jail or rehab and counseling. This is our goal. I felt so bad for this young man and wanted a way to help him immediately but after calling available treatment centers, we learned of an 8-10 week waiting period. There has to be a better way, and we will find it! We need to help people, but it’s up to each person to help themselves. Their family, friends, neighbors, or even government cannot fix all their problems. So our advice to you is don’t start drugs! Train your kids early and tell all that will listen that drugs destroy lives! Don’t talk to me about making any drugs legal, if it cause’s one extra person to start on a drug it’s not worth the risk. I will keep you posted on the help and recovery of this person, we will pray it works out.

Have a great week!

Chief Mark Kearse