Coronavirus

Chief: Pandemic not slowing drug arrests

BUCKHANNON -- While people staying home during the pandemic COVID-19 lowered car wreck reports in 2020 and misdemeanor arrests for the Buckhannon Police Department, a different problem continues to plague society.

"The one thing that was consistent, unfortunately for the year, was drug activity," Chief Matt Gregory said at last week's Buckhannon City Council meeting. "Again, I believe that was due in large part to the pandemic as well. We saw a period of time in the middle of the year where we were having several overdoses - not just here in the city but in the surrounding county."

This prompted the Mountain Lakes Drug and Violent Crime Unit -- of which the Buckhannon Police Department is a member -- to conduct specific raids in the community to address the drug overdoses, Gregory said. The veteran police chief presented the BPD's annual report Thursday.

"The totality of the report is a reflection of the commitment that our officers and volunteers have for the community," he said. "As we continue to progress toward accreditation, much of the operational activity of the police department is a direct reflection of the progress that has been made toward this endeavor."

Gregory provided a paper report but gave a brief overview of the numbers.

"For the most part, across the board the numbers were either consistent....or down - and for the most part down," he said.

"That is due in large part to the pandemic. We saw accidents greatly decrease. Misdemeanor arrests are down noticeably as are citations. I attribute that in large part to the pandemic," he said.

"There were only 127 accident reports last year and one thing that remained consistent was the percent of accidents with injuries compared to the total number of accident reports," Gregory said. "There were 34 accidents that involved injuries and no fatalities last year. That was 27% of all accidents that had injuries."

Compare that to 156 total accidents in 2019 with 25 percent involving injuries and 181 accidents in 2018 with 23 percent recording an injury. The number of offense reports taken in 2020 was 606, down slightly from 670 in 2019. The BPD recorded a slightly higher rate of clearing reports with 71% in 2020 compared to 66% in 2019 and 68% in 2019. The top five crimes for 2020 was also the same -- shoplifting, fraud, larceny, drug offenses and hit and run.

"The top five comparisons really hasn't changed in terms of what we are dealing with," he said. "It's just less of it last year. That includes everything from the types of reports we are taking, the types of citations that are being written and the types of arrests that are being made."

Felony arrests rose to 109 from 72 in 2019, but Gregory explained the reason for the higher number.

"There were a couple of cases in the middle of 2020 where a multitude of felonies were committed," he said. "They involved such things as credit card fraud and fraudulent use of an access device. This resulted in numerous felony charges for those individual events. I want to say that there were two specific events that netted that number of felonies. That makes the total felony arrests look like there was a sharp increase, but if you take those two cases away felonies are down with all the other statistics as well."

Misdemeanor arrests were down to 293 in 2019 compared to 453 and 410 the two years prior. Under traffic citations, there were 346 citations written throughout 2020 and 555 warnings given as well. By comparison, officers issued 658 traffic citations and 1,223 warnings in 2019 and 669 traffic citations and 1,161 warnings in 2018. The number of 911 calls for city police amounted to 5,612, below the 5,896 calls in 2019.

Gregory said the number in 2019 and 2020 has increased because the Comm Center readdressed the way they report and record activity and that is why there was a large shift in 2018.

"This current report is more reflective of that type of reporting," he said. The annual report for the task force which Gregory included as part of his report reflects all agencies involved in the task force.

"This is the one area that remained consistently higher especially when you compare it to the last several years," he said. "We continue to address these issues. The task force is doing a lot of very good work. We have a lot of very good working relationships with our neighboring agencies. I believe that through these partnerships we are able to continue to successfully address these issues that face our community."

Councilman Dave Thomas asked Gregory if there was a particular age group more prominent in the drug arrests. Gregory responded that drug abuse "really doesn't any boundaries.

"Drugs has associated every socio-economic class, every age, every race equally unfortunately. We see that time and again, not just with our patrol activities, the types of calls we are dealing with on the street -- rather domestics, suspicious activity. We see all types of ages and individuals who have unfortunately been affected by this."