For this episode of Making a Difference, KSMU's Michele Skalicky talked with Cris Swaters, public affairs officer for the Springfield Police Department, and with Tad Peters, a major with SPD.
Swaters: I've been with the department about three years, and I know a lot of people see my face on TV. All of our social media — I'm the voice behind our social media posts and most of the stuff we do from a public communication perspective.
Peters: I'm Tad Peters, I'm one of the majors with the Springfield Police Department. I'm responsible for the Investigation and Support Services bureau, been with — I'm in my 28th year with the Springfield Police Department. So Investigation Support Services Bureau is basically everything that's not a uniform assignment so that's my area of responsibility.
As we look back at 20 years of the community focused report. Let's go back to the beginning. At the time, red flags were that drug arrests for people under 18 were on the rise, and methamphetamine was the main problem. And the domestic violence rate in Greene County was double the state's. How have we done in addressing those issues and what more still needs to be done?
Peters: So in that — perspective, back to 20 years ago, yes, methamphetamine was still a big problem at the time. When I started back in the 90s that was just the primary issue that we were dealing with. We had a lot of meth labs here, which that has really all but disappeared locally in recent years. So that was still on the rise back at that time and a big focus. Domestic violence was still an emerging issue, but a significant one here locally. You know, there's some discussion on whether that was based on our increased reporting or whether we had a higher rate of occurrence or a higher rate of reporting here. And we've always been very willing to take reports on anything that's happened. So, but we did focus on that, and we have studied that. And back in, let's see, we're talking in 2004, it started to get attention. In 2012 at the police department, we created the Family Violence Task Force and have, that's evolved over time into the Family Justice Center and various different projects that have come about to address the domestic violence issues.
How are we doing with domestic violence in the county today?
Peters: It's really remained pretty steady. The increase has slowed down. But as I said, in 2012, we really, it really caught our attention then because we had a significant increase in the aggravated assaults, which were primarily attributed to domestic violence. And that really was a large spike at that time. Since then, we've had a little bit of ebb and flow in the case numbers but generally staying consistent where we are. Of course, we were hoping for a big reduction rather than a steady number, but the reality is it's a very big challenge to reduce domestic violence because you have to get into the home situation and, you know, addressing a lot of deeper family issues than just, you know, throwing out some notices to the public and so forth.
Another thing that I want to talk about is mental illness, because I know we've come a long way as a city in kind of understanding those with mental illness and their needs. The approach that law enforcement takes regarding those with mental illness has changed. Talk about the approach SPD takes today versus 20 years ago.
Peters: So that's really evolved. When I first started, we really didn't have the resources, and a lot of times those people would end up in jail if they had done something that was creating a disturbance or, you know, disturbing the peace. Or, you know, we were getting calls about someone repeatedly, we had really no other alternative. Over time, we've added CIT, which is critical incident response training, for our officers. So they know now some of the initial responses and how they can provide resources and kind of interact with people who are having a mental health crisis and help them get to the resources they need. We have partnered with Burrell, and we have the Crisis Center, where we can take people when they're in a time of crisis. So the resources are much more now than they used to be. And that has really helped giving us other routes to help out people who are experiencing those issues.
Swaters: Which, really, like that is why that has really rolled over the years into why it is now in 2024, you know, our response to mental health is now a blue ribbon, where maybe in the past it would have been perceived more as a red flag.
Yeah, a lot can change over the course of two decades. I remember when methamphetamine was a huge problem in Springfield, but we still have substance abuse problems.
Swaters: Substance abuse, you know, is still absolutely a red flag in our community. It's just pivoted a little bit what that looks like. And, you know, with the influx of fentanyl and rather than it being manufactured here, it's coming from elsewhere. But within that red flag, there's also that blue ribbon in that, you know, the introduction of Narcan being widely available, both from, you know, first responders and the leave behind kits from the fire department just that has really helped reduce the number of fatalities and that, while the drug issue and the substance use problem may still be there, you know, lives are still being saved.
Yeah, I know Narcan has become so much more widely available and anyone can go get it if they feel like they want to carry it around. What is being done to address some of the top issues? How are we doing with gun violence? Are we seeing — are we making inroads there?
Peters: We've seen some really good progress over the last four or five years. So in 2020, of course, things changed everywhere, and the crime changed as well. We saw an increase in violent crime for a period of time there leading up to that. For probably the last 10 years before 2020, we had a steady increase in violent crime, gun crimes, youth involved in gun crimes on a regular basis. And we were starting to, you know, really put a lot of efforts into addressing at that time. Then, of course, COVID hit, and things changed. And with that, we had a brief spike in crime. And then for the last three years, it's been a steady decline, probably for years, actually and a lot of efforts on that. We have a lot more investigative tools where we can track people down who are involved in those violent crimes like license plate reader cameras and, you know, a lot of different new technology that allows us to solve those crimes that may have been harder to solve previously. So I think that's part of it. The public campaign has been part of it. We've put a lot of resources toward addressing those issues in the community, issues that have come to the increase. And now we're seeing a positive trend there.
Swaters: And I think you notice, you know, as you look at some of our red flags, especially the current red flags and the blue ribbons, is that they really go hand in hand, is that we have this, you know, gun related crimes as a red flag, but also community collaboration as a blue ribbon and the Community Partnership's Gun Violence Collaborative that is part of that community collaboration that has absolutely, you know, had an impact locally with with gun related crimes, especially where youth are involved.
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Elaborate on that group that you just mentioned.
Swaters: So they do a lot of a lot of work with, you know, just grassroots community efforts with particularly youth who would be more inclined to be involved in some of those crime related issues. And we meet every month. We really talk about it's, you know, thereis that grassroots efforts as well as the community outreach with doing, you know, marketing campaigns. You know, our PSA talking about, you know, how responsible gun owners should, you know, keep their guns locked up. There's just so much communication there that is really driving that message. And hopefully really we see in the future those gun related crimes continue to come down.
Yeah, I mean, a proactive approach is is always best. And it sounds like that's very much what's happening there.
Peters: I think probably the best part of this — Francine Pratt with Community Partnership is the leader of that group. And we've really involved a lot of community groups as well, from religious groups to other outreaches. We started with surveys of young adults and basically not just written surveys, but also community meetings where we brought people in and said, 'okay, what are the issues that you're seeing that lead people into these situations that result in gun violence?' And a lot of times we're hearing that youth just don't have outlets for their energy. They don't have creative resources where they can do things. They don't have mental health support. A lot of people grew up in a poor family situation, and and the mental health issues just grew because they didn't have an outlet for dealing with that. So a lot of things they've done is set up activities and things for young people to do, rather than get involved in conflicts and things that lead to violence. And that's that's been a pretty positive result from that as well.
Great. I want to go back. You mentioned technology, and I know that that was one of the blue ribbons in the 2024 report. Talk about some of the technology that's available. I know you mentioned some, but what has really made a difference over the past few years as far as technology?
Peters: You know, so many things. I talk about 20 years ago when I was a detective working homicide cases and other things. Back then, cell phones were very different from what they are now. We were just in the early stages of being able to track someone's location based on their, you know, their cell phone and which tower it was connecting to. Nowadays, it is so much more advanced where we can track much more specific location, travel patterns, communication and so forth. The license plate reader cameras, the flock cameras that we have around town. I know some people don't like the idea of their license plates being read when they drive past a camera, but the reality is we're using that to solve violent crime. We're not using that to track people's daily movements. And the results have been very good. We have several cases where we have, for instance, if we have a child abduction, we you know, we've had some very big high profile cases in Springfield over that. If we had had this technology back then, we could have immediately typed in the license plate and tracked that car's movement across town and gotten to that person much more quickly. But now we're able to use that. Our officers in their patrol cars are able to jump in their car, type in the license plate number when they're told and immediately start tracking a car and get location and and solve those crimes, find those people quickly rather than let more negative consequences occur before they get ahold of them.
I want to get an update on on how you're doing with — I know that there was a push recently to make sure that people had their cars up to date. And, you know, we see a lot of temporary plates that have been expired for months. How is that effort going?
Peters: Actually very well. There's been a lot of public campaign on it. There's a lot of frustration from those in the community who do take the time to keep their cars properly registered, pay their taxes and that type of thing. So there's that aspect of it where people need to have that personal responsibility and do what they need to do, but also the crime investigation side. Yeah, the license plate reader cameras I just talked about, they don't work if there's no license plate on the car, or at least they don't work as effectively, and the expired tags, there's a frustration that we see all those running around, but it's also more likely that someone with the expired tags is not going to have insurance, and there's going to be more liability for the people they might get involved in a wreck with and and so forth. So I think the PR campaign has had a pretty good result. We've had very limited use of that new ordinance because most people took notice of it and went out and took care of their issues and got their cars current. We heard from the Department of Revenue that they had a big influx of people coming in to get their registration up to date when the deadline was coming. So pretty good positive results so far.
What do you think will be the concerns for the city going forward?
Swaters: Wow. I think, you know, that is a good question. I want to think positively, particularly where the red flags are concerned, is that, you know, our 2024 red flags were gun, you know, gun related crimes, substance use and and then of course staffing shortages. And you know, I want to see those things all become blue ribbons by the next time we complete this report. And, you know, I want to see that trend go up. And, you know, to live in a world where we don't have a red flag.
Peters: I like that we were at a point where our violent crimes, our homicides have reduced so, while it's still a priority, we're always going to have those cases that we need to address, we're now able to turn focus a little bit more to quality of life issues. The license plate example you gave, I mean, we were not able to direct a lot of resources toward an issue like that because we were busy dealing with people getting shot and homicides occurring. And, you know, we didn't want to let the more serious crimes that have a huge community impact take the place, you know, lose their priority based on other things. But yeah, now we're able to direct more resources toward things that cause issues for the community. And, you know, the city council members hear about it on a regular basis. The frustrations that they see with, you know, the perception that we're not focusing on these other things as well. Well, now we can turn focus toward those a little more.
How are we doing as far as property crimes and just, you know, things, petty theft, things getting stolen?
Peters: Our numbers have improved a little bit as far as the reported crimes. The reality we've had for many years with property crimes is the number of investigators we have to investigate those crimes is significantly smaller than the number of crimes that get reported. We have to triage those cases, and we only have so many investigators to assign. So a lot of cases simply don't get a detective assigned to do the follow up. Sometimes, even when they're very solvable, just, you know, the matter of if we have 20,000 property crime, you know, theft reports and 12 detectives who are available to assign those to, it's pretty easy to see that they're not all going to get the attention we like them to get, and we do the best we can with it though.
How are we doing — you mentioned staffing shortages — how are we doing as far as staffing shortages? I know you're making progress. We've heard (Chief Paul Williams) say that, but how are we doing?
Swaters: You know, we're getting ready to start the next academy class in June. And we actually had a testing today (April 18) for that, hopefully get a couple more applicants in that June Academy from this testing. You know, we want to see us fully staffed and, you know, hopefully get a good size class to start in June to help with a lot of those, you know, problems, with being able to assign those cases, we get more police officers, we get more detectives. And of course, if anybody is interested in becoming a police officer, gospd.com.
In your opinion, what are some common misconceptions regarding what the Springfield Police Department does?
Peters: Well, I'll just say we suggest that people do a ride along if they're very interested in the real operations of the police department. Everyone who I've talked to that has done that has had a very eye opening experience as far as what they see on TV versus what really happens in the daily, one shift of a police officer, for example. A lot of misperceptions. People see an officer sitting on a parking lot where they're working on a police report on their computer in the car, and they think they're just hanging out, doing nothing, wasting time. Well, our officers don't have a lot of time to sit and do nothing. They're almost always going to a call when they finish that call. There's five more waiting. So they they might be sitting for a while writing the reports and doing the follow up. That needs to be done, but the free time available for officers is very limited. So I would want people to understand that officers, they may look like they're sitting in a car parked somewhere, not doing anything, but they are actually working on, wrapping up whatever call they just left and moving on to the next thing. The reality is that there's always another call waiting. There's always more interaction with the public that we'd like to do. And when the officers free up some time, then they can start working on things like seeking out those expired plates or whatever. You know, if we have a series of car break ins or auto thefts, we put a lot of effort into finding where those hotspots are and directing officers to spend their free time preventing those crimes in the future. So it's very focused as far as where we direct their efforts and what they're doing. The perception could be sometimes that, you know, they're just driving around doing nothing, but you don't know where they're headed or what they're doing at the time. So I would just ask people to be patient and try to understand that there is a lot more going on than might be visible as you drive by and see an officer somewhere.
Swaters: You can always do a ride along, you know, do a ride along in the beat, wear your neighborhood is so you can see, you know, get a good idea of what the officers who are driving around your neighborhood day in and day out, what they're seeing and and get that perspective from the police officer just in your own backyard.
If someone wants to do a ride along, how can they request that?
Swaters: There is a link on the website. How do I go on a ride along? And there's a form right there, and that'll get the process started.
What are some ways the public can help reduce crime in the city?
Peters: Awareness. Watching for suspicious activity, calling us when they see something that warrants further action by the police. Keep in mind that someone's opinion, you know, if you see someone who doesn't fit in the neighborhood, be cautious, be aware. Maybe take down license plate numbers. But if that person is not committing a crime, there may not be much for the officers to do when they go respond. So watch for someone who's actually committing some illegal act, and certainly call when those things happen. And basically and otherwise, take note when you see something suspicious and be aware. And then if there is a crime report later, you can follow up with that information and help us solve those crimes later on.
Swaters: I think, related to the Community Focus Report specifically, there's two things. Is first, related to technology, as we have cameras, there are cameras everywhere. They are so common for, you know, residents to have a video doorbell or even a security system. Let us know that you have those cameras. And if something happens in your neighborhood, our detectives, knowing that there are cameras there, that saves them so much time so that they don't have to canvass an area where a crime happened to try to find video footage that might help solve that crime. So you can also do that on the website. Let us know if you have a video doorbell. And then second is really related to responsible gun ownership is asking those who do own those legal firearms, keep them secure. Don't leave them in your car unattended or unsecured and of course, when they are at home, ensure that they are stored and secured properly, not just sitting on the nightstand or under the bed — any sort of gun lock to be able to keep those out of reach of those who may not be trained to use them. That way only you are authorized to use it.
And I always want to end with what else would you like the public to know, or is there anything else that you would like to talk about that we haven't talked about yet?
Peters: You know, somewhat related to the things we've already said with the improvements in technology and the awareness of the location of cameras. We are going to be implementing a real time crime center, kind of the early stages of it. What that means is bringing in various sources of information from a lot of different resources, including our own internal sources, but also the public resources. The software we're going to use is called Fusus. What that allows us to do is bring in camera feeds from all the existing public cameras. But also if private businesses chose to share a connection to their network, then say, if we had a robbery at a convenience store, we could have our officers looking at the cameras in that convenience store on the way there and see what they need to see. So if they could if the public could be aware of opportunities like that, we're going to start doing a public outreach when we do the implementation of that system. Support like that is really important for us, whether it be, you know, sharing information in a direct real time method or reporting when you see something or basically just helping us out when we need to solve a crime, that's that's a big thing.
Swaters: And I think our top blue ribbon here is community collaboration. And we are so fortunate to live in a community that is overwhelmingly supportive of law enforcement. And we have so many incredible community partners that we can all work together on to ensure that the Springfield community can be, you know, the best possible place to live, and we can keep everyone safe.
