 Today's featured speaker was the City of Adrian's Police Chief, Vince Emrick who was introduced by Greg. Vince was born and raised in Riga, graduated from Siena Heights, Masters from EMU, been at the APD since 2001, and has been Chief for the past 10 years and replaced former Police Chief, Terry Collins.. There are 32 sworn officers currently on the force, Vince said, which was down form 35 when he became Chief but feels that the City is adequately covered. The national average is 2 officers for every 1,000 residents so the police department comes close to that. There are not many people going into law enforcement today. When he himself applied to become an officer here, there were three openings and the number of applicants, he said, for those jobs filled the Piotter Center! Recently, Vince needed two additional officers but only six applied! The process the department uses now is active recruitment. They just don't wait for candidates to apply, they actively seek qualified candidates. Vince updated the audience on the shooting event last week in Adrian and also said that typically "calls for service" are about 20,000 per year which has slowly trended downward and then COVID hit and the calls dropped to 13,000 that year due to the department curtailing the "pro active" calls like pulling over drunk drivers or speeders so as to prevent exposure to the virus, Vince said. The real change, he said, has been in the area of violent offenses. While these calls are down, those issues are more violent with "people just shooting people" among the same groups of people the department has always had to deal with. almost all of these issues, Vince said, were gang related. In other words, a circle of friends that don't get along with another circle of friends. Mental health-related calls, Vince said, was on the rise. At times the department has gone on 6 calls with the same person on the same day! If they create a crime, they are usually nor=t arrested because there is no facility to take them to and the cycle starts all over again. Some have sought shelter under local bridges, passer byes call in to the police department to see if they can be helped. It really creates a drain on resources, he said. The other dilemma, Vince said, is that some of these people, while they get pensions, choos to maintain that life style because the want to. Vince closed by sharing with the audience the recent vote in over 30 years by the City Commission recently to pay his officers more than the City of Tecumseh pays theirs! He passed out a sheet listing the huge number of warrants by departments in Lenawee County which showed that Adrian's officers were doing more work than the Tecumseh officers that justified the pay increase. |
Guest today were:
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