Saratoga Police Department to add officer

At the May 18 meeting of the Saratoga Town Council, Saratoga Police Chief Ken Lehr cited an increase in drug related offenses and violent crime in a request to advertise for a fifth police officer.

While the town council unanimously approved the request, it came following a lengthy discussion led by Councilmember Jon Nelson about the communication, or lack thereof, between the police department, the council and the public.

Build it, they will come

Following Lehr’s request, Nelson clarified while the council’s approval on May 4 to hire an officer to replace officer Bifano would put the department up to four officers, the chief was requesting an additional full-time officer to join the force.

“I thought it would be important for us to just talk about that a little bit tonight ... not just for the council’s benefit of understanding what is driving that request for additional resources, but so the public understands it as well,” said Nelson. “The feedback from that will be that, as we make decisions here, potentially, to appropriate more money to the police department, why it’s necessary and justified.”

Citing the ongoing wind energy projects in northeast Carbon County, the turnaround at Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company and ongoing construction projects in the Valley, the police chief stated both the number and severity of crimes were beginning to increase.

“We used to have marijuana, stuff like that. We’re starting to see the cocaine, the meth, the heroine. I, personally, have gone down and picked up used needles, tourniquets, baggies, empty vials in the restrooms at the hot pool,” said Lehr.

The chief added that, recently, two officers were out on a call for an assault and that he was called out for a second assault taking place elsewhere in Saratoga. Lehr stated, for both the protection of Saratoga residents and his own officers, the number of people on the force needed to increase.

Disconnected

“I don’t think anybody disagrees with that,” Nelson said. “I think two points that have been made to me over the last week or two; one would be that there’s a disconnect between that information and what people are gathering from police reports and if there are all these crimes or if there’s being arrests and citations, why it’s not reflected in the police reports.”

The total number of computer-aided dispatch (CAD) calls responded to by the police department from January 1 to May 10 of this year totaled 1,285. These calls are published on a weekly basis along with a record of warnings, citations and arrests in the Saratoga Sun.

Recent police reports published in the Sun, however, have not shown citations or arrests for the severity of crimes mentioned by Lehr at the May 18 meeting. The reason behind this, according to Lehr, is because some of the cases were still under investigation. One such case was a death between April 24 and April 25 near the Saratoga Hot Pool, or Hobo Pool, that had not been included in the published police report or had been reported by the police department to the council. 

“Hot pool checks, lately, a lot of those result in citations, they result in arrests,” Lehr said. “It’s almost like HIPAA on some of that stuff, you can’t disclose names”

How Many?

Nelson, responding to Lehr, stated he didn’t believe names needed to be published. He added, as the council considers increasing the number of officers in the Saratoga Police Department, it was important the department, the council and the community as a whole discuss what they were facing with the increase in temporary population.

“I think the big elephant in the room, the big question is, how many fatalities have we had at the hot pool in the last six months?” asked Nelson “Where we at?”

Lehr said the police department had recorded five deaths at the hobo pool in the last six months with the death at the end of April being the most recent. In a follow-up interview with Lehr, the police chief informed the Sun some deaths were considered hot pool deaths by the department due to the original call being for a hot pool check even if the deaths did not occur within the hobo pool.

“So, five within the last six months? I think, just to put that in perspective, if we had five fender benders at the intersection of Bridge (Avenue) and the highway ... we’d all be talking about doing something,” said Nelson.

As the discussion over the hobo pool continued, Lehr stated with the facility open 24 hour a day, seven days a week and all year round it was difficult for the department to constantly patrol the area. He added the majority of the citations issued by his department came from using security camera footage at the hobo pool.

Inform the Public

Moving back to the issue of increased drug use in Saratoga, Nelson stated he believed if the concern was primarily with the temporary workers it should be addressed before propagating in the rest of the community. 

“If it’s focused, right now, as a transient problem then we need to ensure that those people understand that Saratoga is not the place to come and bring their drugs,” Nelson said.

Mayor Creed James said while an increase of officers in the department was a good tool to begin addressing the issue, the department needed to work on informing the public as well either through the newspaper or in reports given during council meetings.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on June 1 at Saratoga Town Hall.