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Lakeville Police highlight hires, grants and lower case counts in Q4; cadet funding and community programs noted
Summary
Police Chief Brad Paulson presented the department’s fourth-quarter 2024 report, highlighting three new officers, cadet grant funding, a $2,500 community partnership grant, prescription drug collections and year-over-year declines in several crime categories.
Brad Paulson, chief of the Lakeville Police Department, presented the department’s fourth-quarter 2024 report at the Feb. 3 City Council meeting and summarized staffing, grants, community engagement and statistics for the year.
Paulson said three officers (Adam Peterson, Josh Buickner and Brandon McCarthy) joined the department in late 2024 and that Sergeant Thor Howell completed Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command and is among recent promotions. “The Lakeville Police Department exists to ensure an excellent quality of life in Lakeville by serving and protecting in a professional and innovative way,” Paulson said as he opened the report.
Paulson described several grants and partnership items: a cadet grant program through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety that provided $50,000 in support per cadet and will fund two cadets starting in February, and a $2,500 grant from the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Foundation to purchase supplies for the department’s support services liaison. He also reported that the department’s prescription drug drop box collected the equivalent of 187 banker-style boxes in 2024 (about 2,300 pounds).
On community engagement, Paulson highlighted events including Lake Alliance Health Fair outreach, Coffee with a Cop visits at senior facilities, a “Shop with a Hero” event coordinated with the Lakeville Public Safety Foundation and a youth citizens academy piloted in late October.
In statistics, Paulson said overall case files for the fourth quarter and for 2024 were down compared with 2023. He said the department transferred 23 crisis-response calls in the fourth quarter to Dakota County’s crisis response unit (about 78% handled without police involvement) and that, for the full year, 81% of 101 such calls were handled without police involvement. Traffic stops were down in 2024 while property-damage crashes increased slightly and personal-injury crashes decreased.
Paulson also noted training initiatives, including defensive tactics, vehicle extraction and precision immobilization technique (PIT) training, and the department’s effort to bring more department-wide training to a local hero center once it opens. He closed by answering council questions about repeating the youth academy and thanking the council for the community’s support for Lieutenant Jason Jensen, who was hospitalized after a hockey injury.
