Police agencies assure residents
They say call-policy changes won’t reduce protection level
Central Arkansas law enforcement agencies are assuring residents that their level of protection will not drop despite announcements their officers will not respond in-person to calls they once did.
Little Rock Police Department and Bryant Police Department are restricting the calls they will respond in person to in order to prevent the spread of covid-19.
These policy changes are not isolated to Arkansas. The Associated Press reported officers in Fort Worth and Denver have stopped arresting people for low-level crimes.
The Bryant Police Department announced on Wednesday night officers would no longer be responding to all nonemergency calls and would be taking reports over the phone instead.
This follows a Tuesday decision by Little Rock Police Department to stop responding to nonemergency calls.
Representatives from both departments said that many types of incident reports are already being taken over the phone, but the departments will be taking even more of them over the phone to prevent the spread of covid-19.
Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Michael Ford said the nonemergency calls would be taken by their telephone reporting unit. Some of the cases would be transferred to detectives to investigate, such as terroristic threatening when the suspect had left the scene when the crime was committed.
“That would be something that our detectives would have to follow up and investigate depending on if it’s a felony or not,” Ford said. “Most terroristic threatening [charges are] misdemeanors. And so, if they’re not there and there’s no imminent threat to [the victim] then and there, we’re going to take it over the phone.”
Residents who are worried about a perceived drop in their level of protection should not worry, according to Ford, because the only thing that is changing with their service is where the report is being taken.
“The level of protection isn’t going to change,” Ford said. “If the citizen is in imminent danger then, yes, we will respond. We will make contact with that citizen, and we will properly investigate it.”
The decision to not respond in person to non-emergency calls was made to protect citizens from unnecessary contact with law enforcement. Ford said this will prevent the spread of the virus to detainees, officers and others calling 911.
“The decision to have officers not respond is a safety decision not only for us but for the citizens,” Ford said. “I mean, we come in contact with a large amount of people, and we’re at risk of getting it, but we are also at risk of passing it along. And that was [one] of the things we looked at assessing on not responding to these calls but taking these calls by telephone reporting unit.”
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott tweeted in response to a concerned citizen that not responding to non-emergency calls is “a consistent law enforcement and public health practice” during a pandemic. According to Ford, Chief Keith Humphrey concluded that this was necessary from talking to other heads of law enforcement departments around the country.
“… We don’t want to potentially spread it, because we know we can’t take off,” Ford said. “We know we have to be there to answer the call when somebody’s at risk.”
Bryant Police Department spokesman Sgt. Todd Crowson said the department will also be taking non-emergency calls over the phones, but there will be no drop in safety for residents.
“The protection is still there,” Crowson said. “The officers are still working the streets. The officers are still responding to all emergency calls whether it’s a life-threatening call or whatever. They are still responding to those.”
The only calls Bryant Police will not respond to, according to Crowson, are non-emergencies where faceto-face contact is not required for a report to be made.