Sheriff's office says average arrival about 9–12 minutes; officials dispute newspaper's characterization of response times

At a town council meeting, a representative of the sheriff's office responded to recent newspaper coverage of a downtown jewelry theft and related reporting that described slow response times. The speaker said the office recorded 36 in‑person responses in August and that the arithmetic average arrival time across those calls was 12 minutes; removing five unusually long responses (welfare checks and multi-jurisdiction incidents) reduced the average to about nine minutes.

The sheriff's office spokesperson told council members: “If you take away the five longest responses ... our average response time for August was 9 minutes.” The speaker added an example of a recent, serious domestic incident, saying the suspect vehicle was stopped four minutes after a 911 call and three deputies were on scene within nine minutes.

Why it matters: Council members raised the item after a local news story questioned the department's speed and handling of a high-profile theft. The sheriff's office representative said the article relied on a single critic’s perception and asked reporters to fact-check with law enforcement in future stories.

Details from the meeting: The speaker said the town has had seven thefts in the current year and four burglaries, and that only two burglaries involved missing bodies (the transcript wording). The speaker described recurrent retail thefts by transients who move across counties and said those cases are difficult to track because suspects quickly leave the area. Council members and business owners in the meeting described coordination between the sheriff's office and the business community, including rapid retail alerts dispatched to merchants after incidents.

Discussion vs. action: The item was a department report and a public clarification; council did not take formal action on policing practices at the meeting. Council members accepted the update and asked for continued communication between businesses and law enforcement.

Ending: Council members thanked the sheriff's office representative for the data and encouraged businesses to share information quickly with deputies for faster responses.