Catch your breath

As predicted, it was a terrifically busy weekend. On Friday, we handled 562 dispatches. On Saturday, it was 500 on the nose, and on Sunday, your day of rest, it was 482. That's 231 more police incidents than the preceding weekend. June 29 through July 1 have been the three busiest days this year, so far.

Among the big events that consumed a lot of officers were an early Saturday morning bar-break shooting, in which three people were struck by gunfire. Officer Chris Monico described his role in the investigation, and detailed how he was dealing with an "...immense crowd" at 13th and O Street--a product of the normal bar break mayhem, compounded by the buzz of Americruise weekend. Officer Megan Riffey made a great arrest on the case, but a couple dozen officers (everybody we could possibly scrape together) had to get into the downtown area to deal with the near-chaos.

Also among the 1544 incidents over the weekend, we had two serious traffic crashes--one fatal--and a pretty successful undercover prostitution detail that netted three arrests by Sgt. Mike Bassett, and Officers Megan Schreiner, Tony Howe, Emily Shulz, and Jeff Hanson. That was just a part time gig for these officers, though, they were back in uniform before and after helping to handle the rest of the workload. Good police work was the order of the day, despite the constant pounding. There was a lot more of it, and plenty of compliments to go around. Suffice it to say I am very proud of the way our officers rise to the occasion even in difficult circumstances.

If you look over the nature of those dispatches, pay particular attention to the burglaries, assaults, missing persons, child abuse, larceny, traffic accident, sex crimes, vandalism, auto theft, narcotics. These are all incidents that require significant time to investigate, considerable report writing, and often involve follow-up work beyond the current shift.

Our police officers are busy, and our department among the smallest per capita. Actually, we are the smallest in Nebraska, and in our neck of the woods, Fort Collins and Arvada would be the only cities of more than 100,000 that are smaller per capita. Don't take my word for it, do your own research. Despite the small size, our officers produce high-quality work and an unparalleled number of arrests for this community. No one has taken me up on the challenge to search for another agency with the same number of arrests per officer, but I hope someone does. Maybe some of those journalism students out there are looking for a story line.