To say Pierce County’s sheriff’s deputies were busy in 2022 would be an understatement.
Sheriff’s deputies drove a distance the equivalent of a trip to and from the moon and half-way there again, while answering almost 15,000 calls, keeping the county’s residents safe, battling the illegal drug trade and still finding time to do public service like assisting motorists and unlocking vehicles.
“I am not here to ask for more money or more staff,” Sheriff Ramsey Bennett said as he began his presentation. “I just want to give you some idea of what all we do with the staff and the financial resources we have.”
Bennett gave his annual report at last week’s county commission meeting, in lieu of a printed insert in The Times.
“I hear all the time people talking about why we have so many people working at the sheriff’s office and the jail,” the sheriff said. “I can assure you none of them are just sitting around idle.”
Bennett said he has 12 full-time deputies when his office is at full staff. Those deputies work 12 hour rotating shifts seven days a week, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
“Any given day, that breaks down to about seven calls per deputy per 12 hour shift, which may not seem like much,” he said. “But take in to consideration that a domestic call in Offerman at the Wayne County line may take up to an hour to resolve and at the same time you may have an emergency call in Sandy Bottom clear on the other side of the county. You still have to find the time to write the reports, you may have to go see the judge for a warrant and you may have follow up work. If a call takes two hours on average and you have seven calls that day, that means 14 hours or work, but you only work 12 hours. You can’t just leave, though. The calls have to be answered and dealt with.”
Drug related crime continues to be the number one issue the sheriff’s office deals with every day. (See related story.)
The sheriff’s office served 74 search warrants last year, all drug related.
“The crime lab that does our chemical analysis says we keep them busier than a neighboring city with three times our population.
“That’s not a distinction I want to have, but we are going to attack the illegal drug trade,” he said.
Despite the illegal drug issue, Bennett points out that most violent crime statistics in Pierce County fell in 2022 compared to 2021.
Robberies, burglaries, larceny and stolen vehicles all fell last year compared to the year before. Three robberies, 46 burglaries, 117 larceny cases and 26 stolen vehicles were reported during the year. The county also four arsons and two driving under the influence cases.
In addition to criminal investigations and responding to calls, deputies also were required to serve warrants and civil papers, issue tickets and write accident reports.
Warrants almost doubled with 1,295 served in 2022 compared to 698 the year before. Deputies also served 2,332 civil papers, an increase of 185 from the previous year. The number of tickets issued fell from 499 in 2021 to 349 in 2022. The number of accident reports written declined by 16 to 201 in 2022. The work load for serving warrants and civil papers is based on a six day work week.
“We don’t serve legal papers on Sunday,” the Sheriff said.
In a bright spot, the Pierce County Jail started generating revenue. The jail received income from counties needing space to house inmates.
A new 93 bed addition to the jail opened in March.
While Pierce County made $12,151 in 2021 by housing out of county prisoners locally, the sheriff also spent $260,873 housing Pierce County’s prisoners elsewhere due lack of space.
Those numbers are reversed with the new jail addition in 2022.
Pierce County only spent $45,354 to house its prisoners elsewhere during the first three months of the year.
After the new addition was open, Pierce County had extra space to accommodate prisoners from other counties. The jail generated $290,519 housing prisoners for other counties.
Overall, Sheriff Bennett said he and his deputies are doing the best they can to keep calls answered and keep everyone safe.
“Most Pierce Countians are good, hard-working people and don’t know what we go up against and what we are facing each day,” said the sheriff. I hope this gives them some information about what we do.”
