Police, Fire departments provide reports on ‘unprecedented’ 2021

FORT SMITH — The Police and Fire departments saw extraordinary changes in 2021, according to annual reports city directors heard Tuesday.

“We’ve heard the word ‘unprecedented’ quite often over the last three years,” Police Chief Danny Baker said. “With a 500-year flood, followed by a global pandemic, social unrest — and I’ll add to that hiring challenges that we’ve experienced — it’s easy to understand why. Our city and our people have gone through a lifetime of challenges in a very short amount of time, but I believe we have emerged stronger because of it. That’s why we’ve chosen the theme ‘unprecedented success in unprecedented times’ for our 2021 annual report.”

POLICE DEPARTMENT

The Police Department reported 81,000 calls for service in 2021, with all divisions and bureaus delivering the same level of service despite having around 30 vacancies in sworn personnel throughout the year, according to Baker.

Baker said despite the challenges, Fort Smith had a 6% decrease in group a offenses including murder, homicide, kidnapping, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, burglary and theft. He said detectives investigated over 5,000 cases — including 11 homicides — and had an overall clearance rate of 90%.

“While methamphetamine is still the most prolific and deadly drug in Arkansas — as well as Fort Smith — opioids, specifically heroin and fentanyl, have found their way into the lives of too many Arkansans, and the number of overdoses that our officers encounter is unacceptable,” he said.

“We’ve had over 30 documented saves by officers equipped with Narcan, including two officers who were hospitalized after an accidental exposure to fentanyl,” Baker said. “Our narcotics, K-9 and intelligence teams work diligently with our state and federal partners to combat the supply and distribution aspect of our drug problem, while our crisis intervention unit, along with substance abuse and mental health providers work to address the addiction aspect. I believe that by addressing the problem from both ends, we can have a meaningful and lasting impact on the drug problem in Fort Smith.”

Baker said there has been an increase in vehicle collisions, with officers investigating 3,061 accidents causing 16 fatalities and 39 serious injuries. He said the most dangerous intersections are Old Greenwood Road at Phoenix Avenue and Rogers Avenue at Phoenix Avenue, and the department is responding by increasing traffic enforcement, and partnering with the Arkansas State Police and Alcohol Beverage Control to crack down on impaired driving.

Baker said the state increased the minimum training from two to four hours annually per officer, with the Police Department requiring 16 hours. He said officers had

nearly 26,000 hours of combined training, which included over 1,900 hours of cultural diversity training, and over 50% participation in a 40-hour crisis intervention training course. He added the goal is to get that to 100%.

“In line with our focus on deescalation and officer safety, new Tasers were purchased, along with a highly immersive virtual reality training simulator, which allows officers to engage in real world training and deescalation training in the safety of a classroom,” Baker said.

“Our greatest achievement in 2021, and for sure the one I’m proudest of, is being the first agency in the state of Arkansas to field a co-response crisis intervention unit,” he added. “Those specially trained officers, paired with qualified and highly trained substance abuse and mental health specialists, we were able to obtain grant funding for these mental health professionals to accompany our officers to ensure that individuals experiencing a crisis have the support that they need following critical incidents. We were recognized as one of the very few police agencies in the state to report our use of force data to the FBI.”

Baker said the approved budget for 2021 was almost $1 million less than in 2020, with the department being able to return almost $3 million because of grants received and cost-cutting measures. Having a number of vacant manager and supervisor positions while the department trained staff to prepare for those roles was one of those measures.

The internal affairs division investigated more internal complaints — those made by supervisors — of misconduct than it did complaints by residents. Fort Smith residents made 29 complaints against Police Department employees, with 14% of those sustained and resulting in disciplinary action, Baker said.

Ward 4 Director George Catsavis asked if the department has seen any issues with gang activity, and whether they have a task force to combat it.

“We have a group of individuals that have continued to cause problems in our city for a long time. Some of them would ascribe to be gang members, but we do have an intelligence unit that one of their jobs is to monitor signs of gang activity within the city. They assure me that at this time they have not identified any organized criminal organizations operating in Fort Smith, outside of cartel connections in the drug trade,” Baker said.

Baker added cities across America have been inundated with cartel activity, which is separate from local, street gangs. He said if the city gets to the point where there’s a problem with street crimes, they can consider reinstating a task force or street crimes unit to combat it.

Mayor George McGill asked Baker to explain his stance on community-based policing. Baker said his philosophy is it’s how policing should be done.

“Unfortunately, our profession at some point morphed more into a paramilitary — we were essentially taught that this was a battlefield, and we were fighting crime, and we were fighting this war on drugs,” he said. “So that warrior-type mentality, we own that, but that was expected of us as well, and we see the results of that. We’ve felt the results, the disconnect between the citizens that we serve and us being able to do our job.”

“We are all part of the community. We live here, we work here, we play here and we’re invested in it. And so by going out and taking opportunity to engage with the community and the people in the community in a non-enforcement type, non-traditional policing encounter, that lets those two — the officer and the citizen — see each other as people, as valuable human beings that are equally valuable,” he said. “And they want to work together and solve problems together. It results in preventing crime and it results in solving crime.”

Lavon Morton, Ward 3 director, thanked Baker for his leadership.

“I consider our city to be an extremely safe city, compared to other cities of comparable size in Arkansas and elsewhere, and I think that’s directly attributed to the job the Police Department does,” Morton said.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

Deputy Fire Chief Boyd Waters said dispatch protocols were modified in 2020 due to covid-19, with emergency medical service screening calls and having the department only respond as needed. The department responded to 9,931 calls in 2020.

Waters said 2021 was the busiest year in department history as they returned to normal protocols and responded to 14,904 calls, with 10,583 being rescue and medical calls, 429 being vehicle accidents with injuries, 127 building fires, 50 vehicle fires and 49 grass fires.

In incidents involving fire, the total value of property involved was $260 million, with a combined loss of $4.3 million — or 1.67% of the total property value — attributed to those fires, Waters said.

Waters said the department had substantial training in 2021 as well, with 149 uniform personnel getting a combined 45,000 hours of training, with classes such as emergency medical service, CPR, hazardous materials and dive team. He said the fire marshal’s office alone had hundreds of training hours.

“One of the goals in 2021 was to increase the conviction rate in the arson cases by 15%,” Waters said. “Arson conviction is a very difficult thing to prove. There were 31 arson investigations in 2021, and of those we’ve had eight convictions, and there’s still one pending. So that raised the rate to 26%. The goal is to build this conviction rate closer to 50%. So with the advanced education, the techniques they’re using has proven to be beneficial.”

Catsavis asked when the city can expect its Insurance Services Office re-certification.

The office provides scores to communities based on how prepared the area is for fires, which affects business and home insurance rates.

Waters said the Fire Department hasn’t received the report yet, but expects to move higher into a class one rating.

“I just want to say that just like for the Police Department, we are in Fort Smith extremely fortunate to have an excellent Fire Department, and it’s clear in so many ways,” Morton said. “I had a personal experience with a relative and an emergency response in the middle of the night, and it was amazing how quickly the Fire Department was there. So I know you do a great job, and I thank you for that. We really appreciate what your department does.”