SIDNEY — The year 2015 was a good one for the Sidney Police Department.
“We completed another year of stability within the command staff which allowed us to grow and develop our supervisory skills and institute new goals for the department,” said Chief Will Balling. “Our patrol section was very active and not only responded to critical calls, they also helped prevent many. Our special unit section was active with major cases and community events throughout the year.”
His report continues:
On a personnel level Officer Brian Boyd retired and Officer Robert Hurd and Officer Ethan Brown joined the department. We continued to strive to meet our core values of Professionalism, Integrity, Courage, and Compassion every day.
During 2015, officers received professional training in many topics, including domestic violence, human trafficking, firearms, defensive tactics, forensic interviewing, legal updates, and other topics. We also had our first Shelby County Law Enforcement training day which allowed several departments and organizations to come together for informational training provided by several agencies in Shelby County. As a result of these training efforts, officers combined completed over 3,500 hours of on-going training.
Through 2015 we continued to deal with heroin and other dangerous drugs. Our drug unit has attacked the problem not only from the enforcement side, but they have also developed and given several informational presentations to educate the community on the dangers of heroin. From the enforcement side, the drug unit presented 168 felony cases to the grand jury and served 14 drug-related search warrants. In October, we conducted a “Drug Round Up” that resulted in the arrest of 29 individuals who were charged with 91 various drug violations. The patrol section stayed active by trying to locate and prosecute individuals bringing heroin into Sidney. We have also partnered with the Ohio State Highway Patrol in efforts to reduce the amount of heroin coming into our city from Dayton and the surrounding areas.
The department also continued improving in the field of forensic science. The Sidney Police Department completed its first year of conducting forensic interviews of children. In 2015, four officers completed intensive forensic interviewing training bringing the total of trained forensic interviewers at the police department to five. This training technique was used to assist sixteen children in 2015. We also experienced an increase in the number of forensic computer examinations. In 2015, department investigators forensically examined fourteen computers and thirty-four cell phones. Having this ability in-house allows our investigators to have crucial investigative evidence/information within hours in comparison to several weeks if outsourced to another agency. In March of 2015, as a result of this capability, the largest child pornography case to date in the city of Sidney came to a successful resolution. The suspect was sentenced to four years in prison for possessing more than 25,000 images and more than 500 videos of child pornography.
The Community Resource Program also completed its first full year. In addition to the program’s outreach with many community organizations, some notable accomplishments were the training of 60 women in RAD, 50 children graduated from the Sidney Safety Town Program, and over 500 Children Identification kits were processed throughout the community. We have also started the “Coffee with a Cop” program to help give citizens the ability to talk with the Police Chief and share information back and forth.
Though statistics provide only a portion of the story, the summary below gives a glimpse of the year-long activity of the department:
• Responded to 28,451 calls for service.
• Investigated 638 motor vehicle accidents.
• Completed 3,220 incident reports.
• Arrested 970 adults and 132 juveniles.
• Made 9,616 traffic stops.
• Issued 1,661 traffic citations.
• Indicted 183 individuals at the grand jury.
Although 2015 saw many successes and much was accomplished, we will continue to move forward. As noted in our Department’s Vision Statement, we strive to “exceed the expectations of our community, to adapt to the ever changing challenges, and to provide the highest level of service and protection to our citizens.”
