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Statesboro police report: robbery and property crime trends fall; training and technology expand
Summary
Police chief Mike Bridal presented 2024 statistics showing declines in robbery and property crime, high training totals and expanded programs such as Roadway Assist, video‑sharing and gunshot detection.
Police Chief Mike Bridal presented the department’s 2024 year‑end review to supervisors, highlighting long‑term crime trends, training metrics and new programs aimed at preventing and solving crime.
Bridal said robbery has trended downward over the past seven to eight years and that theft and burglary have declined over a decade; he cautioned year‑to‑year figures can swing with small absolute counts and recommended long‑range views for trend analysis. The department reported over 14,000 total training hours in 2024 and an average of 173 training hours per sworn officer, well above the state minimum of 20 hours.
Chief Bridal described programs that free officers for patrol work, including Roadway Assist — staffed by college interns in a marked pickup that handled towing, private‑property crash management and roadside assistance roughly 2,200 times last year — and precision‑policing tools such as shared video platforms and tag readers that helped recover 20 stolen vehicles and support about 47 felony arrests tied to that evidence.
On use of force, Bridal reported fewer than 1% of arrests required reportable force: 14 use‑of‑force incidents among more than 1,600 arrests in 2024. Patrol officers handled more than 45,000 calls for service, about 4,300 citations, about 1,400 arrests and roughly 1,500 public‑property crashes. Bridal said traffic warnings have outpaced citations in recent years and that the FAIR‑and‑the‑bypass location remains the city’s top crash site, where engineering changes could reduce rear‑end collisions.
Bridal also noted that in January 2024 the city consolidated dispatch for police and fire, increasing dispatch workload to nearly 47,000 calls handled. He concluded by praising training, technology and community programs as tools the department uses to prevent and solve crime while trying to limit force and preserve officer availability.
Ending: Bridal invited questions and emphasized the department’s focus on data‑driven enforcement, training and community outreach going into 2025.
