As Grain Valley’s population climbs, so does crime, said Police Chief Aaron Ambrose.
Calls for service from the city’s police department in 2007 reflected that upward trend, with calls climbing from 4,374 in 2006 to 5,103 in 2007, according to department statistics. Calls for service are logged when an officer is dispatched to a location, or asked to respond to an inquiry from either an individual or another law enforcement agency. Calls have followed an upward trend, increasing each year since 2000, when the number of calls was only 2,267.
Grain Valley’s record for clearing crimes is much better than the national average of less than 20 percent, Ambrose said. The national figure is part of the Uniform Crime Reporting statistics, a national ranking of crimes. In 2007, department officials cleared 48 percent of the 926 crimes reported. In 2006, the department cleared about 51 percent of the 670 reported crimes.
Ambrose attributes the higher-than-average clearance to the staff and the public’s cooperation in solving crime.
“I think having the key personnel doing the job, getting the right leads and the detectives asking the right questions,” said Ambrose of the department’s two full-time detectives, one of which also is the Captain. The detectives are assisted by the department’s other staff members, which includes two full-time clerks, and the patrol division, which consists of 12 officers. Two Grain Valley patrol officers are assigned to each 12-hour shift.
Ambrose added, “It (the department) is a well-oiled machine, and when it’s good, things happen. That’s the bottom line.”
