GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) – Gridley City Council was privy to an update from Gridley Police Chief Rodney Harr regarding the department’s operations and status.

Chief Harr started his presentation with the department’s new mission statement that he had brought forth. It reads: “It is the mission of the Gridley Police Department to work in partnership with the community, to serve with Integrity, Honor, Professionalism, to protect lives and property, to preserve the peace and order, to create a working environment in which we recruit, train and develop an exceptional team, and above all, to protect the Constitutional Rights of each individual in the community we serve.” In addition to the new mission statement, the department logo has been revised to reflect just the community of Gridley since the department no longer contracts with the City of Biggs for Law Enforcement services. It has been changed on all vehicles, uniforms and documents.

Additionally, the GPD has completed training and has rolled out its new taser program. GPD officers are awaiting individualized training on the new body-camera program but continue to wear their old body-cams until that has been completed. Further mandatory peace officer training is currently being integrated to an online platform, which the GPD expects will save the department greatly in travel and lodging costs.

Chief Harr then presented statistics to the council regarding crime in our area. He compared the crime rate data from 2019 to the year 2020 in the seven major categories reported to the California Department of Justice: criminal homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft.  Overall, Chief Harr reports that crime in the area has decreased by at least 9%, with 6 out of the 7 categories seeing lower incident numbers than the previous year 2019. The exception is the category of motor vehicle theft.  He states, “This data is brought forth through the algorithms that are mandated by the state that pull that information directly from our cache system.” Chief Harr assuring the council the data is “reliable, concise, precise data.”

Further items discussed was the work of the community service officer aiding the City with code enforcement, while handling calls for service that would otherwise be handled by patrol officers. This has allowed patrol officers the ability to maximize their time, resulting in more arrests and captures. Other topics included the status of the Animal Control Shelter, along with some of its needed updates, and its trap, neuter and release program that has received grant monies.  Chief would like to see the implementation of a Volunteer group, such as STARS, be offered through the GPD but states that is in a holding pattern until COVID19 restrictions ease.