SIDNEY — Monday evening, Police Chief William Balling presented the Sidney City Council with the Police Department’s 2015 Annual Progress Report, stating “2015 was a good year for the Sidney Police Department.”
Balling’s report showed that over the last four years, with the exception of an increase in robberies — due to the use of heroin and other dangerous drugs — that the department’s incident reports have “leveled off” to a “significant drop.” Balling attributes the positive results due to the officers “proactive, increased activity.”
“Heroin is our main drug which has caused an increase in robberies, but it is all over Ohio. We are smack dab in the middle,” said Balling, when comparing Sidney to other Ohio communities managing with the rising heroine epidemic.
When dealing with heroin and other drugs in 2015, the department’s drug unit presented 168 felony cases to the grand jury and served 14 drug-related search warrants. A “drug round up” was conducted in October resulting in 29 arrests and bringing forth 91 charges of various drug violations. Balling also showed that during 2015, the officers completed more than 3,500 combined hours of on-going training to deal with various issues from domestic violence, to human trafficking, to forensic interviewing.
“One of the things that we are most proud of is every officer on the department is trying to do more out in the community,” said Balling when discussing the department’s community programs.
Last year, the Sidney Police Department completed its first full year of their Community Resource Program. Through their out-reach efforts, many “notable accomplishments” resulted, such as the self-defense training of 60 women in the RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) program; 50 children graduates from the Sidney Safety Town Program — which included the Cyber Safety presentation on keeping kids safe on the internet from predators; and also among the other programs, was educational presentations on the facts surrounding heroin. Another notable program started at the department is “Coffee with a Cop” that intends to facilitate communication and foster a relationship between the community and the police chief.
In conjunction with police department’s annual report, also was the recognition and honoring of the community’s Telecommunication Technicians; thus, Mayor Michael Barhorst proclaimed the week of April 10-16 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
After the four dispatchers in attendance received the honor recognizing their diligence and professionalism keeping the community and citizens safe, Renee McDowell responded saying, “we would like to thank the support of the officers and the support of the community.”
The next Sidney City Council meeting will be held on Monday, April 18, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
