WBIR and the Knox Sheriffs Facebook page reported last month about the arrest and dollar values received by the Sheriffs Retail Crime Task Force.
I asked some Followup questions to Kimberly Glenn of the Sheriffs administration. The questions were; How many arrests made in KPD jurisdiction? How many in county? How many arrests that actually occurred on store property? How many arrests occurred off store property not related to store theft? How much money came from on store property arrests? How much from off store property arrests? How much money from non theft related arrests? How many arrests from outstanding warrants? How many arrests from traffic stops or other officer interaction not on store property?
The answers.
The stat totals generated that were accumulated for release were based off total numbers of arrests made by the 11 Task force officers that were assigned for Retail Theft Task force duties (Not including supervisors) during the task force holiday schedule. When accumulating stats, the arrest totals are based off the records pulled from their IDN numbers in our records management database. While on duty, these 11 officers were assigned to Retail Task Force Duties so their stats will reflect that. For example, while working Task force and an officer observes a hand to hand narcotic transaction in the parking lot, and a traffic stop is made, that would count as an arrest for that officer while he was on Retail Theft Task Force assignment. As in every task force, total arrests made could of been for outstanding warrants, offenses that happened in presence of officer, theft suspect…etc. These stats are generated the same way other stats are generated. For example : a patrolman working his patrol shift hours… his/her arrest totals would be for any arrest he/she made during hours working that capacity. Just because he may not be dispatched to a call, but makes an arrest on his way… that would still be a patrol duty arrest stat. And for specifics of arrest, a viewing of his reports for the day would be accessible for public review.
This would be the same for the amount of money seized. The stats were based off the totals for the 11 officers on Task Force. All arrests generated were inside of Knox County and stats are not produced for this Task force based on City Jurisdiction. The city is in the county, so all arrests came within the Knox County Sheriffs office jurisdiction.
If inquiries are being requested for detail records requests, I would recommend the requester to follow the steps through Public Records Information acts to be able to view each arrest made by each officer. This would allow the requester to get all the details from each arrest to answer any of his/her questions about specific details. Due to time restraints of such a detailed report, we do not run those kind of reports for our stats, but if someone needed to view, all reports are public record and all documentation is subject for public review following the agencies protocol to review those.
I have heard that Sheriff Spanky Spangler has said, let the city (KPD) do their job. The obvious exception being Retail Crime Task Force and executing a warrant on high profile community activist.
