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ELKINS -- Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon has released statistics highlighting his office’s activity during the first six months of 2026.
“Most of the numbers we have for the first six months of this year are similar to last year’s first six months,” Elbon told the Inter-Mountain this week. “The statistics each month change for a variety of different circumstances. Say, if your traffic stops are up, your cases are going to be down. If your cases are up, your traffic stops are down. So if you are answering a bunch of calls, you typically don’t have as much time to run traffic.”
During the month of June, the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office answered 512 calls and made 114 traffic stops. It initiated 34 cases and made 11 arrests for 11 offenses. Twenty five traffic citations were issued and 39 warning tickets.
During the past six months, the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office answered 2,924 calls and made 675 traffic stops. Officers initiated 201 cases and made 79 arrests for 96 offenses. They handed out 172 citations and 238 warnings.
“I think the six months numbers are down just a little bit from last year,” Elbon said. “That doesn’t mean that we are not doing anything, we are answering calls as they come in… We are dealing with a lot of mental illness and drug abuse issues right now.”
Elbon said that the drug issues in the county lead to other non-drug related crimes. “A lot of the breaking and entering and the destruction of property cases are people trying to steal something to sell for money,” Elbon said. “The drug problem leads to a lot of our crimes all the time.”
Elbon said, when it comes to traffic stops, a lot of attention will continue to be paid to the Beverly Five-Lane.
“We are trying to be present on the roads and we want people to know we are enforcing the traffic laws,” Elbon said. “The Five-Lane is extremely dangerous, honestly, with the speed people are traveling there. You go through a light and get hit in the door broadside, it’s not going to be good.
“We’ve had a couple serious crashes on the Five-Lane recently so we are trying to get out there and be as present as we can to get people to slow down. We try to not write everybody a big ticket because it’s hard on budgets and families, but we also have a job to protect the community.”
Elbon said he is glad that there weren’t more felonies among his list of arrests during the past six months.
“We are happy that there hasn’t been more serious felony crimes in our area. There have been a lot of misdemeanor things,” Elbon said. “We are hoping that presence and the number of deputies I have is a deterrent to those wanting to commit crimes.”
Among Elbon’s statistics for the past six months, the highest number of calls come on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Tuesdays. The day with the fewest number of calls was Sunday. From 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. was the busiest call time, followed by 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.