Although there were a handful of high-profile crimes in Brentwood in 2016, the overall crime rate remains low.
Yet changing trends in criminal activity and the ever-increasing pressures of a fast-growing community have presented the Brentwood Police Department with problems that didn’t exist a few years back.
In this year in review, Chief Jeff Hughes shared his thoughts on 2016’s biggest stories.
As far as individual offenses are concerned, Chief Hughes said that 2016 was pretty similar to 2015. Final numbers for the year are not available yet, but in year-to-date numbers, there are some differences, although nothing Hughes would call drastic. Thefts from motor vehicles are up, as are thefts of motor vehicles, but other thefts and assaults, for example, are down slightly.
“To say there was a whole lot of variation between 2015 and 2016 from a crime standpoint would not be accurate,” Hughes said. “There’s not been a tremendous spike in anything.”
There was one murder this year — the tenth in the city’s history — Hughes said. It occurred in October at the Extended Stay Hotel on Church Street. A woman, Shannon Richardson, has been charged with criminal homicide in the death of Reuben Dunigan in that case, according to previous reporting.
Other notable crimes from the past year include the robberies and burglary at three Brentwood hotels in early December. In one case, at the Hilton Suites Hotel at 9000 Overlook Blvd., a masked and armed suspect robbed a front desk clerk. In another incident, a clerk returned to his desk at the Hilton Garden Inn at 217 Centerview Drive. and found that the cash register had been broken into. A final incident at the Candlewood Suites Hotel at 5129 Virginia Way involved a suspect entering the hotel lobby but leaving after failing to gain access to cash in the register.
Chief Hughes said these incidents remain under investigation.
For Hughes, these types of violent incidents certainly should not be overlooked, but he stressed that their relative scarcity in Brentwood demonstrated what a safe place it is to live.
“We’re very blessed to have a low crime rate,” he said. “And even though we don’t have a significant amount of serious crime, we do have them occasionally. We’re not immune to serious crime. We have robberies, we have rapes, we have homicides. But we’re fortunate that the majority of our crime is property related.”
Property crimes involve cars
Many of those property-related crimes involve cars. Hughes granted that the city does have a continuing problem with car break-ins.
“The reason we … have that is that it seems to a certain extent that we are a target rich environment,” Hughes said, mentioning Brentwood’s many popular retail and public spaces.
He suggested, too, that those crimes, in many cases, can be traced back to people’s casual sense of security when it comes to their cars.
“Folks leave their valuables in their car in plain view,” he said. “That tends to make them an easy victim when they don’t take the precautions to secure their valuables from plain view.”
Although crime has remained fairly constant in the city this year, Hughes said he has noticed some trends in criminal behavior in 2016. Opioid abuse, for instance, has popped up time and again in Brentwood in the recent past.
The biggest trend in crime Hughes has noticed, though, has to do with fraud and identity theft.
“That’s the trend we’re seeing more than anything,” Hughes said. “The days of walking in and robbing something seem to be fewer, but the crimes of trying to defraud someone by either using their identity or through technical means is the trend we’re seeing more and more of.”
Hughes referred to the jury duty scams from the past couple of years wherein callers would pose as law enforcement figures and try to deceive people into transferring them money as a penalty for supposedly missing jury service.
Traffic affects response times
Another issue that has been getting worse in recent years is, of course, traffic. Hughes said the number of traffic accidents has increased in Brentwood from 638 in 2010 to 1,216 so far this year.
“For every accident we have we’re committing the resources of our officers to work those accidents,” Hughes said.
Increased traffic isn’t just a concern because it can lead to more accidents. It is also detrimental to the efficiency of law enforcement in Brentwood. Hughes explained that in years past Brentwood police tried to keep their call response times to around five minutes no matter where in the city a call came from. That number has gradually creeped up. At this point last year, response times averaged six minutes and 28 seconds. Right now they’re averaging six minutes and 43 seconds.
“That’s trending up towards seven minutes on average for response times,” Hughes said. “That’s obviously something that we’re continuously evaluating from a resource standpoint to make sure that we can adequately respond to the needs of our citizens.”
Some of the city’s resources in 2016 have been put toward new technologies.
Most recently, some officers were trained to deploy Tasers, “as another less-lethal option,” Hughes said. Seven officers attended the eight-hour training with an in-house instructor this week, and Hughes said more officers will be trained in the days and weeks ahead.
The new TriTech computer-aided dispatch system and the new 800 Mhz radio system approved this year by the city were also mentioned by Chief Hughes as important technological advancements for the department.
Department at full staff
Some notable personnel milestones were hit in the department this year.
Hughes highlighted the retirement of Ricky Knight after nearly 30 years of service.
“He was a lieutenant on patrol, and he committed his entire career to service,” Hughes said. “And that’s commendable in today’s time because you don’t see folks that put in that many years in one job or profession. And he was committed to doing that to serve people, and he was an outstanding police officer and servant to the city of Brentwood.”
Other long-term employees hit significant anniversary years of service in 2016, including Chief Hughes himself.
“I hit my 30-year mark with the city of Brentwood in February of 2016,” he said. “I am the most tenured employee with the police department now.”
The following officers and employees also reached landmarks this year:
- Capt, Richard Hickey – 25th year of service
- Lt, John Wood – 25th year of service
- Dispatcher Laurie Morgan – 25th year of service
- Lt. Jimmy Campbell – 20th year of service
- Capt. David O’Neil – 20th year of service
- Detective Sgt. Adrian Breedlove – 20th year of service
The department recently reached full staff, another noteworthy achievement. Chief Hughes said he hired 17 people in 2016, 13 of whom were police officers. He said the department is allotted 61 sworn positions and 16 civilian positions.
“Overall, the fact that we’re at full staff today, and I look at the quality of employees we have here in the Brentwood Police Department, I think we’ve got some of the best employees that you would find anywhere,” Hughes said. “I feel confident that from top to bottom we’re as good or better than we’ve ever been, and I’d put us up against anybody anywhere.”
