The crime rates are high, jail populations are reaching startling numbers, and arrest records are showing an alarming number of drug related charges – what is going on in Geary county?
Tony Wolf, Geary County Sheriff said that, “I think the crime rate has gone up a little bit, but I don’t think it’s as bad as other parts of the country; but the guys with the Sheriff’s Department agressively pursue the criminal element and if we catch them, we bring them to jail – and that’s how this things works.”
As of Monday morning, the jail population was at 159 according to Wolf who cites that several factors may be at play regarding that number but most notably “the old-fashioned police work that [the Sheriff’s Department] is doing is cause for the numbers to go up.”
The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado has had an interesting effect on the our area.
“We have received a large influx of marijuana coming to our part of Kansas, we’ve gotten several loads of marijuana headed for other parts of the country – and even headed for right here out on the interstate; it’s spreading across the country very, very rapidly,” says Wolf.
The efforts being made to track down drug offenders aren’t going unnoticed, per the arrest records.
On patrolling and keeping our streets safe Wolf says, “we identify certain areas within the community that are higher in drug traffic and we patrol those areas, we work those areas quite frequently, and just spending enough time [in those areas] you will see what’s going on.”
When it comes to making arrests on the interstate, often times the criminals are just too dumb for their own good.
“It boils down a lot of times to simply the people that are in the car – their stories don’t match up. Or they’ll say they’re going to spend a week in Denver, Colorado and they don’t even have an overnight bag within the vehicle; there are several different indicators that you look for and once you get several of those indicators then you can pursue the searching of the vehicle a little harder,” says Wolf.
Although efforts in reducing drugs in our area are strong, Wolf notes “that there is no great science to it, the guys that do it a lot are very good at it, and they know how to do their job.”
With our small community being right off a major highway and relatively in the “middle of nowhere”, it’s prime for drug trafficking – but could nature also play a role in the spike in crime and more notably – drugs.
“We always use to say that the warm weather would bring them out of the woodwork, and when the weather does change and more people are out and about it does increase the people moving around, but I don’t think that’s a real big factor in this,” said Wolf.
Coincidentally, the jail populations were at record highs last week during an intense heat wave that plagued our area.
If you are a witness to a crime this summer call the Junction City- Geary County Crime Stoppers at 785-762-TIPS.