Police Chief gives department report

Ponca City Police Chief Don Bohon presented the Police Department’s 2014 report to the City Commission Monday night.

The department, which has 55 sworn officers, responded to 21,054 calls for service in 2014, Bohon reported. That was the lowest number in the past five years, according to the report.

Bohon also reported on Part One crimes, which are the major crimes used in comparisons of crime rates from city to city. Those crimes include murder, rape, robbery, assault, breaking and entering, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Ponca City’s rates on Part One crimes have fluctuated broadly for some crime over the past five years, but the total for 2014 overall is in the middle range for those years.

Ponca City also ranks in the middle range of cities of comparable size – Ardmore, Shawnee, Del City, Ponca City, Muskogee, Duncan, Enid and Stillwater. Ponca City also ranks well below larger cities, including Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Lawton.

Juvenile crimes, defined as those crimes which resulted in the arrest of a person under the age of 18, have shown a significant drop in the past five years, the report said. The only category which showed an increase in 2014 was assaults.

City police officers made more arrests in 2014 than any year in the past five years, with 2,156 people arrested.

Bohon praised the amount of training Ponca City Police officers received in 2014. He said each officer is required to have 25 hours of training annually. In 2014, officers in the department received a total of 5,708 hours of training, or an average of 105 hours per officer. That number includes 5,587 CLEET certified hours and 121 in-service training hours. Officers also had 168 hours of mental health training, Bohon said.