Message of the Week 02/03/2023 from Sheriff Pope

Message of the Week 02/03/2023 from Sheriff Pope:

The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office finished its first saturation patrol during the early morning hours of Saturday, January 28th. Before I address the statistics of the operation I feel it’s appropriate to address a concern that arose before the saturation patrol began. Numerous citizens asked, “Why would you announce the patrol before it begins? Won’t that make it harder to catch criminals?”

My response to that question:

One of the purposes of a saturation patrol is to suppress crime in the targeted area of patrol. Informing the public that there will be a heavy law enforcement presence in the area seemed to have that exact effect. It was noted while the saturation patrol was in progress, there were very few “calls for service” requiring an on duty Deputy to respond. It seemed the criminal element of Fernley decided not to burglarize residents, vandalize property or commit other crimes that required an on duty Deputy to respond to.

The next saturation patrol will be in Dayton, however we will not provide a date time for that event, we will experiment and evaluate which theory is more effective in each area.

Over the course of the saturation event the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office initiated 131 proactive law enforcement contacts with Citizens. Of those 131 contacts, 101 of those were vehicle traffic stops. I would like to note, that very few citations were issued during this event, these events are not “revenue generators” for the Court System or State of Nevada. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office made 10 arrests during the event, charges ranged from misdemeanors to felonies.

On 02/01/2023, the Chief Deputy Mitch Brantingham and I, met with Colonel Patrick Conway and Captain Tony Roth of the Nevada State Police. They stated the Highway Patrol Division would like to be part of the next saturation patrol in Lyon County. We are looking forward to having our law enforcement partners from the State participate in our next event.

The second part of this message addresses response times by the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office. I plan on releasing our running average on response times month to month. In the beginning of January, the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office was restructured, and the patrol zones shortened. In the attached document you can compare the 2022 response times to our response times in January, 2023. We have seen a significant decrease in response times across the County. The only increase in response times is the priority 3 calls in Fernley. We are actively investigating as to why those response times increased, while the others significantly decreased. I believe it is an anomaly in which type of calls are labeled priority 3, but this will take time to sort out.

Our Deputies, and dispatch center have done an excellent job to ensure these response times are reduced, it is their hard work and dedication to serving their community that reflects in these numbers. I am proud that they are working extremely hard to ensure we arrive on scene in a timely and acceptable manner. It should also be noted that we are operating with less Deputies than we were in 2022. As an agency we will strive to improve our response times further.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message of the week, I look forward to consistently sharing more information with you.
Respectfully,
Brad Pope
Lyon County Sheriff