How successful has the Chesterton Police Department’s K-9 program so far proved?

Pretty darn successful, Police Chief Dave Cincoski reported at last week’s Police Commission meeting.

Sgt. Danny Rocha with his K-9 partner Igor and Officer Erik Herbert with his partner Job have posted to date an 80-percent success rate in incidents involving drug detection or tracking, Cincoski said.

More recently, both K-9 partners began training with the Emergency Response Team for use in certain circumstances, Cincoski added. Pete Duda—who retired several years ago from the CPD with the rank of lieutenant offered to play the bad guy in that training.

Cincoski noted that he plans to start including K-9 data in the monthly reports submitted to the commission.

Another good guy who’s offered to play the bad guy for the benefit of K-9 training is Sgt. Randy Komisarcik. He’ll be wearing the black hat at this school year’s final Community Night on April 26 at Chesterton Middle School, President—and CMS Principal Craig Stafford—announced at last week’s meeting.

In other business, Cincoski expressed his gratitude to the folks at Fairhaven Baptist Church, a contingent of whom visited the CPD earlier this month to present tokens of their appreciation to both the officers and civilian employees of both the CPD and the Porter Police Department.

The Fairhaven members took a tour of the station, everyone then enjoyed refreshments, and a good time was had by all, Cincoski said.

Meanwhile, Cincoski told the commission that all background investigations have been completed on candidates for the open position of probationary patrol officer and that voice stress analysis tests should commence by the end of the month.

Sometime in May the commission should be able to schedule interviews with short-listed candidates, he said.

Members did vote 3-0 to re-schedule their next regularly scheduled monthly meeting to 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 11.

In March the CPD responded to 1,256 calls (1,122 in February), filed 51 cases (36), filed five felony charges and 25 misdemeanor (seven and 42), issued 88 citations and 159 warnings (61 and 122), and investigated 25 accidents with two injuries (37 accidents with 11 injuries).

The CPD also assigned 33 juvenile cases in March and closed 29 of them (33 and 29 in February).

Requests for service last month included 36 alarms (49 in February), 12 animal complaints (eight), one report of battery (five), three burglaries (zero), one burning complaint (zero), one death investigation (zero), 11 disturbances (15), 10 domestic calls (one), five reports of fraud (five), one report of identity theft (zero), 12 miscellaneous juvenile complaints (seven), nine noise complaints (six), four parking violations (10), one peddler complaint (zero), 14 residence checks (six), one runaway (zero), one sex offense (zero), one shoplifting (zero), 45 suspicious circumstances (16), 16 suspicious persons (12), 20 suspicious vehicles (25), 17 thefts (19), 310 traffic stops (198), 17 incidents of vandalism (four), and five vehicle repossessions (four).

Posted 4/20/2011