Police as a Vulnerable

Population
1

Police
as a
Vulnerable Population

Joseph Presley
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Population
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Background

Working as a 9-1-1 operator and dispatcher, it is my job to manage all of the emergency

personnel in the county. Much of the time, we are required to gather mountains of information

based off of a few bits here and there from current calls being worked. Sometimes, this

information is used to aid the investigation, other times it to ensure the safety for police.

After the recent attacks on police, officers everywhere have been on edge anticipating a

strike that hits closer to home. This is a dispatchers worst nightmare, to have an officer get

injured or even die under his or her watch. While larger cities have large amounts of data and

studies, our own departments in Pope county have no had such a luxury.

This topic will help better understand the call volumes for police in our area. The goal

would be to highlight areas that need additional support due to large amounts of calls. While

police officers themselves are not vulnerable, the population of officers themselves are

vulnerable compared to the much larger population. The reason being is these men and women

subject themselves to very unsafe conditions at times that could very well involve weapons or

physical altercations.

This report will only be discussing the calls an officer can be dispatched to and the

quantity, in one year, a department has. There are other factors that do play roles in Police being

a vulnerable population such as developing mental disorders and discrimination but they will not

be discussed here.
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Methods

Seeing as the data for Pope county is limited, all data and statistics were gathered by

myself with the help of the Denise Robinson, Assistant Director of Pope County 9-1-1

Communications. The information gathered include the zones and jurisdiction of local

departments in Pope County:

Atkins London Russellville (4 Beats)

Dover Pottsville Sheriffs Department
Hector Public Safety

In addition to the departments, the number and types of calls each said department

participated in. Each zone was plotted on ArcMap with general accuracy. Calls were then

classified as either low priority and high priority calls. Low priority calls are summed up as

anything that can be handled by a phone call or does not require immediate attention of an

officer. High priority calls are summed up as:

Assault Disturbance- Unknown Pursuit

Burglary Disturbance- Verbal Robbery
Disturbance- Alcohol Disturbance- Weapon Shooting
Disturbance- Domestic Gunshot Wound Stabbing
Disturbance- Injury Kidnapping Suicidal Subject
Disturbance- Physical Person with Weapon

Russellville will be separated into four different beats while all area not associated with a

city or town will fall under the Sheriffs Department. It is also important to note that with

permission, an officer from one zone or area can assist another outside of his jurisdiction.

All zones will rank by color, green being fewer number of high priority calls while red

means a larger amount. Each zone or beat will be on an individual layer in ArcMap. From there
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the data will be commuted in as Calls. In order to compare all at once, a Merge will be done so

that all zones and beats will be in the same layer and data pool.

A large map of the overall county will be presented first. This map will be used to give an

overview of the county and the different department zones along with their call volumes. Each

individual zone will be presented after that along with the data to support the coloring.
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Results
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Sheriffs Department

The Pope County Sheriffs Office (PCSO) took the second most amount of calls coming

in at 1,124 of their total 11,356 (9.9%) volume during the 2015-2016 year. One thing that is

interesting to view is that they fell just behind Russellville Police Departments Beat 1. This

could be due to the fact that concentration of Russellville leads to higher volumes of calls. The

PCSO also respond to a large number or lower priority calls such as Welfare Concerns, Animal

Complaints, and Civil Matters which amassed 7.5% of their total calls. Due to the rural area,

there are less businesses to be subjected to robberies and burglaries.

The PCSO is the more vulnerable out of all the departments discussed. This is due to the

fact that for the entire department, there are 35 certified deputies. Of those 35, only around 16 are

on the street responding to calls. Shifts are broken into eight hours, day shift, evening shift, and

night shift. During any given shift only two to four deputies are on. In is very common for only

one deputy to respond to calls that other departments send two officers to. This essentially means

that if a deputy were to get shot, hurt, or in a fight with someone, his or her back-up could be on

the other side of the county and unable to reach them in time.

Public Safety for Arkansas Tech University

Public Safety is the Police Department for Arkansas Tech University. Coming in at the

second lowest with 36, this department also cover the least amount of area with the exception of

other school properties located in other parts of the state. The department is also in the center of

the most violent part of the county, Beat 1 for Russellville Police department. During regular

business hours, none for the departments phones are not transferred to the 9-1-1 operating center

so it is possible that there are missing calls not provided. Also, of students were to commit a
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crime, they are not forced to stay on campus giving

them the option to commit such acts in the entire

county. However, for the campus alone, officers

have been told to not respond to calls that officer

intervention could make the university as a whole

look bad. This includes traffic stops and other

officer initiated calls. A few more things to note that

are factors to the lower call volume is the Gun Free

Zone and Alcohol Free Zone.

Atkins

Atkins in the closest city to the Pope-

Conway county boarder. This means that many of

the residence might have personal dealings with

Conway county such as employment. This also

means that if Conway county has someone they are

looking for Atkins will watch in their city and along

Interstate 40. Atkins is a town in the rural part of

Pope which means that it also responds to a large

amount of shots fired and burglaries. Also, with it

being so close to the Conway county line, there is

also an increased risk for calls involving alcohol.

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Dover

Just north of Russellville Beat 1, Dover had

94 calls for the 2015-2016 time. Half of the calls for

this zone came from Disturbances. This could be due

to a lower populated, more poverty-stricken area in

which more of these calls could be the result of

alcohol. Another factor is that Dover officers do

assist Russellville and PCSO if requested due to how

close Dover is or could be to a call. This can raise

the call volume for the department slightly. Also,

during the night shift, Dover only usually has one officer working at a time. This also leads to the

issue listed for the PCSO. The department is understaffed to handle certain situations.

Hector

Hector does not have many residential areas

and where it does have housing, the population of

Hector Call Volume
Hector is the smallest in the county. Therefore,

many of the calls that other zones might get, Hector

will not. Out of the 22 calls the department does

have, these calls could have been related to

disgruntled customers, fights in a parking lot, or

misunderstandings. The majority of the time, Hector

does not have an officer on a relies on the PCSO to

respond to its call which could be another factor.

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London

With only one full time officer, it is another

zone that relies heavily on the help of the PCSO.

While there are a few subdivisions in London that

did have burglaries, the bulk of calls came from

disturbances with around 30% of the high priority

call volume. It is unlikely that an officer from

London would have assisted simply do to staffing. It

is possible that being so close to the county line and

the interstate have created the medium call volume

that is seen here. However, London is a good example when talking about PCSO. If one deputy

is in Atkins and the other is in London and a fight breaks out with the deputy in either zone, help

is at a minimal of five minutes away, five minutes is a long time.

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Pottsville

Over half of Pottsville general call volume

came from doing traffic stops. With 143 high

priority calls, around 15% were verbal disturbances.

With Pottsville being a football town, some of these

calls did come from that. Another 10% came from

burglary calls. A recent study has shown Pottsville

to be one of the safest places to live in Arkansas.

This is partly due to the proactive population that

resides within Pottsville. The officers themselves are

proactive when it comes to keeping the public safe by doing traffic stops and property checks.

These officer-initiated calls can something develop into more serious calls.
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Russellville

Russellville is broken up into

the four separate zones. An officer

that is currently patrolling Beat 1 can

leave this beat to go to another one

without permission. Russellville has

around 55 certified officers and more

than three quarters that patrol. They

also have between five to eight

officers working 12 hour shifts. Beat

1, surprisingly had the most calls for

the county at 1,275. This data was

especially interesting due to the it

being that zone where both the

Russellville Police Department and the Sheriffs Department is. Along with this, it has a lot of

unused area. Upon further review, it is possible that a majority of the calls could have been

labeled under the Police Departments address as general reports or phone calls. This could have

led to the spike. However, Beat 1 does have a lot of businesses that could be subject to burglary.

Beat 2 is the wealthier side of town. Calls in this area relate to burglaries and domestic

disturbances. This area also has the smallest population compared to the other beats. Beat 3 is

more primarily residential with a few businesses lining Arkansas Ave and Main St. It is common

for this area to have disturbances and shots fired calls. Beat 4 is more business orientated and
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does have a larger amount of burglaries because of this. For Russellville, the farther you get

away from City Hall, which resides in Beat 1, the greener the area will become.

Conclusion

According to a study completed by the U.S Department of Justice and National Law

Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund, 22% of the calls where officers were fatally shot were

Domestic Disturbances. Law Enforcement is one of the first responders in the event of a disaster.

In the times that they are not helping with a disaster, their job still goes on. They subject

themselves to high stress, dangerous situations. A good officer takes training, time, effort, money

to get to the point they can best assist the public and with officers being gun down, murder, hit,

we are losing our first responders. In the event there is a mass murder of police in one area and

the next day an Amber Alert or a train derailment occurs, what is a department supposed to do

when the previous say a portion of their force was gunned down and the suspect is still out there?

Subject them to more and hope they can all go home? Many officers that I personally know

battle the question that, if things get bad enough, will I stay? because they do not have a reason

to if the people do not want them there. By improving relations between law enforcement

officers and the public, we can better improve the field of emergency management.

References
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Breul, N., & Keith, M. (2015). Deadly Calls and Fatal Encounters. Retrieved May 5, 2017, from

http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/officer-safety/Primary-Research-Final-8-2-16.pdf

Population estimates, July 1, 2015, (V2015). (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2017, from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/05115

A 27-Year Police Veteran on Why Domestic Violence Calls Pose the Greatest Danger for Cops.

(2016, August 03). Retrieved May 06, 2017, from

https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/domestic-violence-police-risk-danger/