Troutdale committee presses police for clearer crime data, requests heat maps and call-type breakdown

Troutdale—s Public Safety and Equity Advisory Committee spent the bulk of its Nov. 6 meeting pressing staff for clearer police data after members found differences between the committee—s monthly crime packet and the city—s public online dashboard.

Kevin Morelli, planning research manager in the chair—s office, told the committee the discrepancy is deliberate: "the public dashboard is more of an incident level view" while the monthly report the committee receives "has all reportable offenses," meaning a single incident can list multiple NIBRS-reportable offenses in the packet but only the most severe offense on the public map.

Why it matters: committee members said the difference can change where residents and officials think crime is concentrated and hamper the group—s ability to target follow-up questions and patrols. Members asked staff to produce maps and tables that are clearer to nontechnical users and that avoid misleading concentrations tied to how data are entered.

What staff said: Morelli and deputies explained three systems underlie the reports. Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) logs calls for service and officer activity; the records-management system (RMS) stores formal crime reports and full offense lists; and the public dashboard displays incident-level information, usually the single most serious offense in the incident. Morelli gave a typical example: a car prowl may generate vandalism, breaking-and-entering and theft-from-vehicle entries in RMS, but the dashboard shows only the most severe of those for that incident.

Committee concerns and requests:

- Location field quality: members flagged many incidents listed at the police building address. Staff said that can occur when a report is taken at the station or when the occur-location is unknown; the RMS has a single location field and data-entry errors do happen. Morelli said staff can filter or exclude records that list the agency building to avoid skewing densities on a heat map.

- Heat maps and granularity: committee members asked for color-coded maps that show types of crime (person, property, society) and the ability to drill into incidents. Staff cautioned that mapping every offense inside multi-offense incidents will weight those spots more heavily and suggested publishing both an incident-level map (one point per incident) and selectable maps by offense group so users can view property crimes, person crimes, etc.

- —All other— call-type detail: the committee asked for a full table of dispatch call types that are currently aggregated into an "all other" category; staff said BOEC/dispatch uses roughly 225 call-type codes and that the log already contains the specific call-type text, and they agreed to supply a breakdown.

Next steps: staff said they can prioritize development work but need a clear list of committee priorities. The committee asked staff to provide the call-type breakdown, options and samples of incident-level and offense-level heat maps, and a plan to remove obviously erroneous station-address entries. Staff and deputies said they will return with follow-up materials; the committee set the next meeting for Jan. 8, 2026.

Committee members and staff emphasized they were not disputing the underlying data but seeking clearer presentations and documented definitions so discussion and patrol decisions are based on the right signals.