Sheriff sums up 2024

Editor's note: Erie County Sheriff Paul Sigsworth recently publicized his agency's year-end report for 2024. Here are the most notable takeaways, according to him. To the citizens of Erie County, Here is the annual report for your Erie County Sheriff's Office for calendar year 2024. This report covers in detail the activity generated as we carried out our varied statutory and public service duties and responsibilities throughout the year. Your sheriff's office consists of four divisions: • The patrol division, comprised of patrol deputy sheriffs, detectives and communications officers • The jail division, comprised of jail corrections officers • The civil division, consisting of a deputy sheriff assisted part-time by an administrative professional • The administrative division, consisting of four full-time and one part-time administrative professional By the numbers In 2024: • We received 14,799 classified complaint calls for service. • Overall law enforcement efforts by your sheriff's office resulted in sworn personnel serving 843 arrest warrants and making 662 criminal arrests. • Our traffic enforcement efforts resulted in 4,941 traffic stops, 92 impaired driving arrests and the issuance of 2,583 traffic citations and 1,885 traffic warnings. • We also investigated 725 traffic crashes. • Our detectives opened 245 investigative case files and closed 206 investigations during the year. • Dispatchers were very busy, as always. They answered a total of 120,509 telephone calls or text messages, including 36,099 emergency calls or texts through the 911 system. • The civil division received 2,382 writs — subpoenas, protection orders and other forms of legal process directed to the sheriff for service — primarily from the common pleas and municipal courts throughout Erie County. • A total of 73 sheriff's sales were carried out based on common pleas court orders. • Administrative Professionals issued or renewed a total of 817 concealed handgun licenses. • The detective bureau with administrative division assistance oversees the approximately 135 sex, arson and violent offenders in Erie County that are required to register their address with the sheriff — a number that can and routinely does change on a daily basis. • There were a total of 354 offender registrations and over 200 random sex, arson and violent offender residence compliance checks completed in 2024. • Corrections officers were busy in the Erie County Jail as a total of 3,221 arrestees were booked into the jail. The average daily jail population was 101 inmates. Substations strive for efficiency We continued to maintain sheriff's office substations in the townships of Groton, Oxford, Huron, Milan, Berlin, Vermilion and Florence and in the village of Castalia/Margaretta Township. The existence of these substations allows for our patrol division deputy sheriffs to report directly to assigned areas of patrol throughout the county at shift changes rather than reporting to the sheriff's office as a group, greatly reducing response times to calls for service and increasing our agency's visibility and crime prevention efforts throughout the rural areas of the county. These substations would not be possible without the cooperative relationships that we continue to enjoy with the township trustees and/or village officials throughout the county. Working with others Due to the continued cooperation and support from: • Edison Schools, Deputy Brian Kingsborough continued in his assignment as the school resource deputy at Edison High School • Erie County's health department, Deputy Sheriff Mike Kennedy continued in his assignment at the Erie County Health Department to provide for the safety and security needs of the staff and patients throughout the agency's health care campus • EHOVE Career Center, deputies Kyle Winebrenner and Jerome Tyson continued to provide school resource law enforcement services at the school throughout the academic year • BGSU Firelands, deputies Paul DeFazio and Austin Bolyard continued to provide year-round primary law enforcement services throughout the campus; This collaborative program has been in place for many years. Deputy Sheriff Justin Majoy started the year assigned to BGSU and transferred to patrol in the fall. • North Point Educational Services Center, Deputy Adam Martin continued to provide school resource law enforcement services at this facility on Galloway Road in Perkins Township; In fall 2024, and following his promotion, Sgt. Jesse Leon began in his new role as the center's school resource deputy. Leon also serves as the direct supervisor for all of our school resource deputies. • Local school districts, Deputy Matt Green continued in his role as our agency's DARE deputy, teaching the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at the center as well as at Margaretta and Edison. • Erie County's engineer office, Deputy Nick Mazur continued to perform commercial motor vehicle weight enforcement duties throughout Erie County • Erie County's commissioners, deputies Greg Hall and Keith Bodi continued to be assigned to job and family services to provide ongoing security for the staff and clients of the agency, to concentrate on the service of arrest warrants issued in cases relating to child support issues and to also conduct criminal investigations concerning the alleged fraudulent receipt of public assistance funds • Huron Township's trustees, we were contracted to provide three deputy sheriffs and one communications officer to provide law enforcement services and supplemental dispatching services within Huron Township; With the additional cooperation of BGSU, Bolyard's salary is funded by both Huron Township and BGSU a multi-agency public safety collaborative. • Townsend Community School, Deputy Justin Sanchez was assigned as the school resource deputy in 2024 • Margaretta Schools, deputies Matt McPeek and Dan Eubank provided school resource law enforcement services in 2024; This past fall, McPeek transferred back to patrol, and Sanchez provided school resource services at the Margaretta High/Junior High School complex along with his duties at Townsend in a collaboration between Townsend and Margaretta Schools. Eubank continues in his school resource duties at Margaretta Elementary. • Various Erie County agencies, the sheriff's office community service program continued its operation in 2024; Corrections Officer Jeff Kashian coordinates the program that allows for those sentenced by a court to perform community service, probationers and nonviolent Erie County Jail inmates to complete routine general maintenance tasks for political subdivisions and nonprofit entities throughout the county. In exchange, the community service workers receive credit toward their fines, court costs and/or jail time. • Various Erie County agencies, Deputy Jacob Cooper continued in his assignment for the supervision of those individuals released on bond pending further Erie County common pleas court action. Cooper is also responsible for monitoring those released on ankle monitors with the approval of the common pleas court judges, thereby reducing the potential number of inmates incarcerated in the Erie County Jail. Protecting the community We continued to provide emergency public safety dispatching services to political subdivisions throughout Erie County. Along with dispatching sheriff's office personnel and acting as a message relay point for other county offices, we also dispatched the following agencies: • Sandusky's police and fire departments • Perkins Township's police and fire departments • Huron's police and fire departments • Bay View's police and fire departments • Kelleys Island's police, fire, and EMS departments • Berlin Heights' police department • Milan's police department • Fire departments for the townships of Margaretta, Groton and Vermilion The sheriff's dispatch advisory board, chaired by Sandusky Police Department Chief Jared Oliver and comprised of the chiefs of the public safety agencies that we dispatch for, continued to provide collaborative input concerning administrative and operational issues pertinent to their dispatch operation. We also provided mutual aid assistance to law enforcement agencies throughout the county on 437 occasions. We also continued to host monthly meetings of police chiefs throughout the county, with attendees representing law enforcement agencies from various local, state, and/or federal agencies. These meetings allow for direct communication and information sharing between these law enforcement professionals. Odds and ends Here's a look at what your sheriff's office also did in 2024: • As part of our agency's ongoing effort to utilize technology to combat criminal activity, Sergeant Dennis Papineau has received extensive training in the use of devices to download evidence — many times crucial to the solution of a criminal offense — from personal computers and cellphones. While these services were previously available, there was, in many instances, a delay of several weeks before that information could be received. If crucially needed, Papineau is now able to download this information in most cases within several hours. We have made Papineau's services available to any local law enforcement agency in the region. • Papineau completed 32 forensic cellphone examinations, five forensic computer examinations and 16 forensic computer hard drive examinations in 2024. Along with conducting these examinations for the sheriff's office, the following agencies requested his assistance during the course of the year: the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force; the U.S. Secret Service; Sandusky police; Huron police; Vermilion police; Milan police; and the Sandusky County Sheriff's Office. • Papineau also continued in his assignment as our agency's training, recruitment and standards coordinator. As training and standards requirements continue to become more stringent, and as employee recruitment continues to become more difficult, it has become necessary to assign these duties to a full-time employee. Papineau has streamlined these functions for the agency as a whole. • With the assistance of the Erie County commissioners, we began our Flock camera program in 2024 with the installation of 11 such cameras throughout the county. These cameras maintain limited records of the locations of vehicles displaying license plates on public roadways. The utilization of this technology produced 12 arrests, seven investigative leads and the conduct of mental health welfare checks on four individuals whose vehicle information was entered into this system. • We continued to provide primary law enforcement response to calls for service at Erie MetroParks properties throughout the county in 2024. • Deputies Josh Miller and Majoy as well as corrections Officer Kyle Bellamy continued in their roles as K-9 handlers, working daily with their K-9 partners, Xena, Rex and Ranger, respectively. Xena is a dual-purpose patrol and narcotics detection K-9; Rex is an explosives detection K-9; and Ranger is our jail K-9 trained to detect narcotics and to track. Our three K-9 handlers successfully coordinated K-9 unit fundraisers throughout the year. • With the outstanding ongoing support and cooperation of Lions clubs throughout Erie County, we continued to participate and staff Project Lifesaver efforts. Project Lifesaver provides equipment that can assist in locating those individuals with cognitive disorders who may wander from their caregivers. Deputy Sheriff Benny Cruey is the coordinator for this program for our agency. • We continued to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the members of the Erie County commission, the Erie County administrator and all other state, county, and local officials in an effort to provide the most effective and cost-efficient law enforcement services possible to our constituents throughout the county. • Fortunately, we did not have any retirements of long-tenured employees in 2024 as we have experienced in previous years. • Along with sheriff's offices in the counties of Huron, Ashland and Lorain, we participated in the HEAL — short for health, education, advocacy and linkage — Human Trafficking Task Force, funded by the Ohio Organized Crime Control Commission through the Ohio Attorney General's Office, to combat the insidious crime of human trafficking. Detective Sgt. Alexis Harvey coordinates our agency's human trafficking enforcement efforts. • Our marine patrol efforts on Lake Erie waters within Erie County continued with the operation of our patrol boat funded by Operation Stonegarden, a collaborative effort with the U.S. Border Patrol. • Congratulations to our 2024 employees of the year by division: — Danielle McGlothlin, administrative professional — Courtney Straub, dispatcher — Layne German, corrections officer — Sgt. Hayden Service, deputy sheriff Outreach all over Last, but certainly not least, we continued our community outreach efforts in 2024 by participating in numerous festivals and functions throughout Erie County. This would include the: • Erie County Fair • Woollybear Festival in Vermilion • Berlin Heights Basket Festival • Milan Melon Festival • Castalia Cold Creek Festival • Kelleys Island Islandfest • Huron River Fest • Touch-a-Truck in Sandusky sponsored by the Sandusky Police Department • Trunk or Treat sponsored by the Perkins Township Police Department • Tango Trot, a K-9 walk and charity fundraiser to honor the memory of U.S. Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak In closing In summary, while unique in many ways, 2024 was a typically busy year for the employees of your Erie County Sheriff's Office. While statistics alone can be useful, they do not — and cannot — reflect the true devotion to public safety that all of our staff members demonstrate while performing their day-to-day duties under what can only be described as, at best, difficult conditions. Whether the employee is a 911 dispatcher, a corrections officer, a deputy sheriff or an administrative professional, they strive to conduct themselves ethically, professionally and in a dignified fashion at all times, regardless of the situation that may occur. They are by far the most valuable asset that our agency possesses. Finally, we wish to thank you, the citizens of Erie County. We thank you for your ongoing support of our agency both through your tax dollars and your conduct. We thank you for your patience with us when we make a simple human error. We know that the vast majority of you are law-abiding and peaceful individuals who support our efforts to serve and protect you and who realize the trying situations that we face. We are deeply grateful for that support, and we will continue to work diligently every day to continue to earn and maintain your support and respect. On behalf of the entire staff of your Erie County Sheriff's Office, I remain, Very Respectfully, Paul Sigsworth Sheriff