There was more than a 4 percent decrease of crimes overall in the City of Benton in 2015 in comparison to 2014 crime statistics, according to the latest annual crime report. Officers from the Benton Police Department responded to 45,432 calls for service in 2015 and spent 10,836 hours in various training programs; supervisors received a total of 758 hours of supervision training.
Though crime statistics increased in violent crime, up 9.09 percent, Benton Police Chief Kirk Lane explained that the rise is rare for the city.
“You’ll see a rise in violent crimes, mainly because we had some numbers that came in late in the year involving homicidal offenses,” he said. “I’m proud to say that since 2010 we haven’t had a homicide offense until (2015) in the city. Unfortunately in one day, we had a vehicle accident that turned into a negligent homicide and we also had a reckless use of a firearm that caused the death of a 2-year-old in our city.”
Lane said the statistics would have been “substantially” lower than the 2014 statistics if the two violent offenses would not have occurred in 2015.
“I’m proud to say that our community’s crime rate has actually decreased quite a bit,” he said. “We want to continue to educate our citizens better about gun safety, because of accidents that have resulted in deaths due to the mishandling of firearms and on an everyday basis we are taking reports of guns stolen out of vehicles.”
In response, the department is distributing free gun safety locks to residents through the Project ChildSafe Program and the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The program promotes the safe storage of firearms and raises awareness about firearm safety by distributing gun locks and educational material to gun owners. School Resource Officers are also teaching students about gun safety through the Eddie Eagle Program.
Other key statistics shown in the 2015 annual crime reports includes:
• Property Crime is down 5.3 percent;
• Records division processed 35,170 reports (up 6.4 percent)
• Special Investigation Unit – Seized $6,895,545.59 in drugs from the streets of Benton, arrested 321 persons on total of 660 drug related charges, and seized 44 weapons along with 9 vehicles for forfeiture.
The Benton Police Department will seek to achieve 10 goals. These goals are as follows:
1. Continued enhanced solvability of crimes committed through pro-active investigation.
2. Continued enhanced supervision training for departmental supervisors.
3. Continued updating of departmental policy manual and apply to electronic format.
4. Continued enhanced First Aid Trauma training and equipment, CPR certification, and Naloxone training for all officers.
5. Continued scheduled improvements as planned by the passage of the Public Safety Tax.
6. Implement improvements in patrol division operations.
7. Continued effort in monthly enforcement and community policing projects.
8. Develop and administer firearm safety program in our schools and to the citizens.
9. Physical improvements to the front of the Police Department.
10. Training improvements in the area of Child Death Investigation and response to Missing Person Reports.
To report incidents call the BNPD at (501) 776-5948 or (501) 315-TIPS. Individuals also may send anonymous information to CRIMES (274637) with the keyword BNPD in the body of the text or go to www.crimereports.com to leave a tip. A crime tip can also be submitted via the official Benton Police Department app found on iTunes and Google Play.
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