Cheney police October highlights include solving Pizza Hut heist

By DAVID TELLER

Staff Reporter

The department's highlights for October included solving the Pizza Hut burglary that happened Oct. 29.

Karen Orona and a 16-year-old male accomplice were arrested.

The department also began a nighttime seat belt emphasis, which turned out to be very successful resulting in 90 citations at $124 each.

Overall the department wrote 124 citations for the month, the highest of the year.

Drug and alcohol incidents are up, especially among minors. Alcohol arrests increased by 25 percent and drug arrests increased by 35 percent compared to last year.

The Police Department requested the City Council approve their request to move the administrative assistant position to that of dispatch.

Currently the department is $5,000 over budget in overtime.

The council unanimously granted the change. Currently department dispatchers continue to be shorthanded with one employee on maternity leave. The remaining dispatchers must fill the gaps during vacations and illness.

The budget still has one area of surplus. The supplies used by the department are currently at 29 percent of the budgeted amount.

CPD reports 65 crimes for the month the October, up five from last month.

Theft and alcohol offenses are again the largest contributor.

Alcohol arrests continue to increase from last month by 53 percent. There were 26 criminal alcohol arrests, the most of any month this year. The large number is due in part to the party bust made by CPD where 14 Cheney High School students were arrested.

By October of 2006, 109 alcohol arrests were made on the year. This October, CPD has made 129 arrests for the year.

Drug arrests were down 80 percent from last month, however there is one-third more arrests on the year compared to last year.

Theft increased in October with 22 arrests, the second highest number of incidents on the year.

There have been 179 reported cases this year, which is consistent with the number of thefts last year at this time.

The department also saw the number of assaults reach it second highest monthly number of incidents, with nine arrests.

Motor vehicle thefts have grown noticeably over the year.

Although last month showed a drop in incidents for October, on the year, 12 vehicle thefts have been reported this year compared to the seven reported last year.

Areas of improvement are burglary, decreasing by half, dropping from two incidents to one.

Burglary has continued to drop.

Last year at this time, there were 45 reported cases. This year there were only been 28 incidents.

There were half as many burglaries last month as there were from last year at this time.

No incidents of robbery were reported in October.

Last month there was a reported case, when Matthew Grainger was arrested for use of force to retain stolen merchandise.

The department has received 7,839 calls for service, an increase of 9 percent from last year, but those calls have generated 1,189 reports.

Four felony arrests were made in October, an increase of 13 percent on the year.

Misdemeanor arrests increased another 12 percent over 2006 with another six arrests last month.

David Teller can be reached at [email protected]