Oklahoma City police are increasingly alarmed by the growing number of guns being stolen from vehicles.
The Oklahoma City Police Department noticed an increase in gun theft out of cars last year, and between June and December 2022, the burglary unit began tracking this more closely. During that time period, there were 364 guns stolen out of vehicles. Of those, 227 were stolen out of unlocked vehicles.
“The real thing that is most concerning to me when you look at those numbers, is I can assure you that’s not all of them,” Police Chief Wade Gourley said. “Because I think there’s a lot of people that get their guns stolen, and they don’t report it because they may not want anybody to know that that gun was stolen.”
He added the people who steal firearms are typically those who can’t purchase a gun for legal reasons.
“So they’re going to steal those guns, they go into a marketplace that caters to other criminals, and we wind up finding those guns committing crimes,” Gourley said.
This new data comes as part of the department’s 2022 annual report it began releasing in 2020, during a time when residents began paying closer attention to their local police departments.
The report gave a status update on the department’s progress in halting major crimes like gun thefts and violent crime, as well as improving crisis intervention and mental health response.
Police officers deploying Narcan much more often
As the state tries to increase awareness around the dangers of fentanyl and especially fentanyl-laced pills, Oklahoma City reported a massive jump in using the anti-overdose medication Narcan in 2022.
In 2022, officers used Narcan 135 times, nearly twice the number in 2021. Just a few years earlier, in 2015, police only used Narcan twice.
Deployments have been growing at the same time the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control reports fentanyl being the “fastest rising killer” among drug overdoses in the state.
In 2022, Oklahoma City police conducted 90 fentanyl death investigations, seized 54 pounds of fentanyl and made 235 felony fentanyl arrests.
In June, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services officials began installing vending machines across the state with Narcan and fentanyl testing strips as part of its Harm Reduction campaign.
Fewer people called police for mental health concerns
Though the department responded to 18,708 calls mental health calls in 2022, police pointed out that this is a 12.4% decrease over last year.
Chief Wade Gourley largely attributes this decrease to a focus on mental health resources from the state Legislature and the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Department, as well as the onset of Oklahoma’s Mental Health Lifeline 988.
Reaching the right help: After 988 lifeline went live, OKCPD responded to fewer mental health calls
The state Legislature changed a law that limited mental health emergency transports to only be done by police officers. Now, the mental health agency has funds to do those transports itself.
“I think those transports are probably one of the biggest things that’s helping us, and then of course 988,” Gourley said. “I feel like people are becoming more aware of that, and instead of calling 911, they’re calling 988 to respond to those mental health calls. I expect those numbers to continue to go down.”
Of the nearly 19,000 calls police responded to, about 1% led to a person being arrested or taken to the Public Inebriate Alternative. The alternative offers people who’ve been picked up for public intoxication 10 hours of detox as an alternative to jail.
In more than 3,700 cases, people in mental health crisis met criteria for protective custody and were taken by police to receive immediate services. For more than 62% of calls, the person didn’t meet criteria for protective custody, didn’t want to go to the hospital or the call was unfounded in some way.
Officers trained in crisis intervention increasing
One of the 39 reform recommendations given to the police department by a city-hired consultant was to increase the number of officers trained in crisis intervention.
Officers trained in crisis intervention learn how to safely de-escalate a mental health crisis, determine whether the person needs emergency treatment and get them the treatment as soon as possible, according to the state mental health agency.
Now, the number of Oklahoma City crisis intervention trained officers is 387, or 35% of the force. New recruits also receive the 5-day, 40-hour training once they complete the police academy.
Anyone with the training and two years of field experience is eligible to join the crisis intervention team, though right now the number of trained officers exceeds the team’s capacity, the police annual report said.
As desire to join police force wanes, department gets creative in filling positions
According to the annual report, staffing levels were “critical” in 2022.
Only 1,097 of 1,235 police officer positions were filled during the year. So, Gourley said, his department has had to get creative in beefing up staff.
“There are areas where you’ve got a sworn police officer doing a function that really a non-sworn individual can do,” Gourley said. “So as those jobs are vacated, we moved those positions back out to the field, and then fill that with a non-sworn person. … I think we’ve added the last time I checked, somewhere around 59 non-sworn positions.”
Shortages are nothing new for the department and police forces across the nation, which all face a lack of people wanting to become police officers.
In 2021, an increase in voluntary exits was driven partially by concerns about legal repercussions and negative public opinions. At a recent news conference, Gourley attributed part of the current staff levels to more people wanting to work from home or with a hybrid model.
“That’s creating issues because you have to show up for work if you want to be an Oklahoma City police officer,” Gourley said. “The positive in that for us is when people do apply, it’s people that really want to be police officers. They’re not just looking for a job.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC police report more gun thefts from cars, use of Narcan