County Sheriff Paul Babeu speaks at Eloy Chamber event
February 18, 2010
www.trivalleycentral.com
Staff photos by Lindsey Gemme, Pinal County Sheriff Paul
Babeu speaks to members of the Eloy Chamber earlier this
month at the monthly luncheon, and dicussed the latest
improvements he and his officers are making in service.
Earlier this month, Pinal County Sheriff
Paul Babeu took time out of his busy schedule to lunch with Eloy Chamber of Commerce
members at the Chamber’s February luncheon at the Holiday Inn in Casa Grande.
As guest speaker, Babeu spoke about the improvements and strides PCSO has made to
improve police services. On an average, he asked attendees about how long they thought
response time was for a County officer. When he first came on as County Sheriff,
the “drop everything response time” was 15-plus minutes. Sometimes no one ever showed
up at all. “That’s not okay,” he said. Pinal County, he explained, is about the
size of the state of Connecticut.
“We’ve grown from a very rural agricultural county that’s 5,400 square miles larger
than three U.S. states, [to being] second fastest growing in the whole U.S. even
in this economy,” Babeu said.
And in such a large county, a good portion remains unincorporated. Many Pinal County
residents still reside in those unincorporated areas, which falls under the jurisdiction
of the PCSO as the primary emergency response agency. Besides ground to cover, another
challenge in reducing that response time is that PCSO only has one deputy per thousand
citizens, whereas most municipalities require at least two.
But county officials have been setting benchmarks to improve service for county
residents.
Since Babeu’s time as sheriff, he and his staff have been able to bring down the
response time from 15 a year ago, to 12.5 minutes. The goal, he said, is to cut
it down to 10 minutes, although the ideal time would be three. He says they were
able to manage that improvement through “technology, equipment and holding people
accountable.”
Staff photo by Lindsey Gemme, Chamber Director Belinda
Akes receives an honorary token from Babeu in a handshake.
First of all, PCSO has been interfacing with 13 municipal law enforcement agencies
in Pinal County. Eloy Police Chief Bill Pitman is the president of Pinal County
Law Enforcement Association, which brings together those 13 chiefs, and the PSCO,
every month.
Training has also been instrumental for improved service, and making certain that
every officer has had first aid and CPR training. So far, 500 officers have done
so.
“We may be the first person on scene, and if you’re looking to us to help somebody
who is in a head on collision, or just drowned, or say it’s an infant, what are
we going to do?” Babeu said. “We owe you that. We’re trying to set up our deputies
for success.”
They’ve also recently installed a beat system for officers. And as most agencies
have in police vehicles, the organization has upgraded many of its patrol cars with
laptops. A year ago, there were only 29 computers installed in patrol vehicles,
and now there are 129.
Laptops allow dispatchers to not only voice a call over the radio, but send information
such as address, phone number and map for the call to a specific officer or patrol
car. This has greatly helped reduce scanner chatter and allowing others to use the
airwaves to call in other emergencies. The agency has also expanded from one channel
to multiple.
To also make things a little more organized, each patrol vehicle has been equipped
with a GPS, which had not been done before within the agency. That allows dispatchers
to call directly on a deputy or officer closest to a call to respond. Before it
was like a free for all, like throwing a ball in the air and whoever reached for
it first got the call, regardless of distance.
“I don’t have all the answers,” Babeu admitted, “but I’ve gone and solicited a lot
of input from a lot of smart people. I’ve appointed people around me…who have far
more experience than I do, even. And I’m not threatened by that. I embrace it. And
I respect those individuals.”
One of those appointed was establishing a grant coordinator position, and hiring
Tim Gaffney. Since then, the agency has garnered approximately $7 million in grants.
With that, PSCO has bought new equipment to help keep the officers safe and make
their job easier. They’ve replaced most of the construction grade radio scanners
for on-duty deputies, with encrypted, 7-800 MHz radios, which cost about $2,600
each. They’ve also replaced 20-year-old ballistic vests that were well beyond their
warranty.
Other measures the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office have taken to ensure the safety
of residents is eliminating photo radar and establishing a DUI motorcycle task force,
as drunk driving is the leading cause of death for those aged six to 33 years in
Pinal County.
“It was all about bringing money into the government,” Babeu said about photo radar.
It isn’t the best way to curb speeding and unsafe driving, though it did help in
some ways, he admitted. “But with photo radar, all you’re focusing on is speed,”
he said. “It hurt law enforcement, because we’re tied to a for-profit company.”
Using live officers, on the other hand, allows for deeper investigations into things
other than just speed. Officers can find out where the driver is going, and can
check if the driver has a license, insurance, or perhaps if he or she has a warrant
out for their arrest. An officer can also check for clues if the driver is impaired
or perhaps a medical issue is a factor and the officer can help. A camera, he added,
doesn’t catch clues an officer would see in driving behavior that would allow them
to ask these questions.
Over $500,000 in grants helped to establish the zero tolerance DUI task force, which
kicked off in December. Since then, approximately 200 have been arrested for either
driving impaired due to drugs or due to alcohol.
“If we know that as civic leaders, what are we doing to stop it? And that’s what
we’ve done…. We’re doing things we can actually measure, and that’s important.”
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