Chief Lee reviews accomplishments of FCPD for 2021
Issues addressed and goals set in department for coming year
Forrest City Police Chief Deon Lee looked back on 2021 for the Forrest City Police Department and despite being short handed, he was happy with how the year turned out.
According to Lee, recruitment numbers are down all over the country, not just in the Mississippi River Delta.
“I’m real pleased with how the year went considering how short handed we are,” said Lee. “We are short and people just don’t realize this. It’s not that we are not trying to hire people or that it is a problem with our leadership. People are just not wanting to be police officers anymore. It’s not just here, I spoke with some friends of mine in West Memphis who said that they were down 17 officers.”
Lee said that the FCPD was able to do things they have been wanting to do including issuing weapons through the department.
“We were able to get a lot of the things that we wanted this year,” said Lee. “We have department issued weapons now, which in the past we didn’t have. I think it will help us recruit new officers because for someone just starting out, they have to pay $600 to $700 for a new gun unless the department issues them one.”
According to Lee, the biggest complaint in 2021 has been about hearing gunshots in neighborhoods throughout the city.
“One of the biggest complaints that we received this year was about shots being fired,” said Lee. “People don’t understand that with a lot of gun laws that are out there now, unless an officer is standing there and sees them fire the weapon, we cannot do anything about it. I understand that neighbors are frustrated with it when they hear a gun being fired.”
Lee stated that he was happy with how community outreach was handled during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic while also being personable with the community.
“I think community outreach worked well this year considering we were still dealing with Covid19,” said Lee. “I definitely look forward to doing more in 2022 similar to what we have done before like the Cops Carnival and the softball and kickball games. I would like to see those programs continue as they did well in the past. We work with the School District and Nate Thomas’ Wellness Center and we look to work with Coach Jim Bailey in the future with his boxing group. We want to do more community outreach.”
According to Lee, the department responded to less calls in 2021 compared to 2020, although, there were a total of 11 murders that took place through the year.
“Overall, I think our men and women did an excellent job throughout 2021,” said Lee. “Unfortunately, we had 11 homicides this year, which we solved nine out of those 11, which is higher than the national average. The national average is around 54 percent. Our calls this year were down from where they were last year as well. Last year, we had around 32,000 calls and this year, with only two days left, it is around 22,000 or 23,000. It wasn’t a bad year department wise.”