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Kankakee police report staffing shortfalls, rising overtime and new evidence-visualization software
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Summary
At a Kankakee City Public Safety Committee meeting, Police Chief Tidwell reported the department is staffed at 65 of 67 budgeted officers, noted higher overtime driven by mandated training and regional deployments, and described a one-year subscription to a digital-evidence visualization tool the department will trial.
Police Chief Tidwell told the Kankakee City Public Safety Committee the department is budgeted for 67 officers and currently has 65 on staff. “We have 37 in the patrol division right now,” Tidwell said, listing other unit assignments and adding, “We currently have 2 in the academy. That's Wade Long and Ben Matthews.”
The chief said overtime is up substantially compared with last year and attributed a substantial share to a state-mandated active-shooter training and to reimbursable deployments. “That training alone ... probably a third of that's reimbursed,” Tidwell said, noting reimbursements come from state traffic patrol grants and participation in task forces such as ATF task force assignments and a countywide SWAT activation.
Tidwell described a recent software purchase intended to speed digital-evidence review. “Nighthawk does not generate original data ... it serves as a platform that helps investigators explore the data,” he said, and noted the purchase is a one-year subscription: “It's $3,800; if we don't like it, we won't renew it next year.”
On public-safety outcomes, Tidwell reported nine firearms recovered by city officers in April and described a shooting on April 30 at 245 South Rosewood for which detectives arrested two people and have them in custody. He said K-MEG recovered six of the firearms and credited LPR cameras and other technology for helping investigators. “A lot of times we already know the answers to what we're asking,” he said of using camera feeds during interviews.
Committee members asked for clarifications on statistics and specific neighborhood patterns. Alderman Jones asked about mental-health call volumes; Tidwell said mental-health calls were down slightly for the month and cited a recent case in which officers helped a resident leave town to be with family. Members also pressed on NIBRS crime-reporting differences and counts of armed-robbery reports; Tidwell explained some incidents are counted under multiple NIBRS offense codes and that suspect counts can affect how incidents appear in summaries.
The committee approved the police department's monthly bills, $119,113.77, by roll call. The motion to approve the bills was seconded by Alderman Rowan Swanson and passed 5-0 (Aldermen Pruf, O'Brien, Swanson, Jones and the chair recorded aye votes). The committee also approved minutes from the prior meeting by voice vote earlier in the session.
The chief said hiring outreach will change slightly for the next testing cycle to try to “reach out to more people,” including social-media outreach to supplement traditional recruiting. He also noted two applicants who recently failed physicals and therefore were not hired.
Committee members and staff discussed geographic patterns in calls for service: Tidwell said the retail hub (referred to as K21) has the most calls while sector K13 in the Seventh Ward has the fewest. He and members also discussed motor-vehicle-related thefts driven largely by opportunistic behavior, such as unlocked vehicles and keys left in cars.
The meeting included brief public-safety operational updates and questions from aldermen; there were no public comments recorded. The committee moved on after the items and agreed to proceed with the next agenda reports.
