Police department responds to increased demand

Local population growth is adding to the demand for Kalispell Police Department services, but Police Chief Doug Overman feels confident his crew is on the right track to meet the community’s needs.

“We have grown and the demand per officer has grown,” Overman said Monday during a presentation for the Kalispell Chamber.

When Overman joined the Kalispell police force in 2000, the department consisted of 29 officers, including 20 patrol officers. In 2000, they handled a total of 18,623 calls, about 931 calls per patrol officer.

In 2021, the department roster totaled 41 officers, with 28 patrol officers. They handled 36,000 calls last year — about 1,285 per patrol officer.

The growth of the city itself isn’t the only added burden on the police department, Overman pointed out. The expansion of the valley as a whole, as well as the concentration of services inside the city, adds inadvertently to the workload.

But Overman said the department continues to successfully answer calls and respond in a timely manner, despite facing increases in demand, traffic and geographic reach.

Overman said the department strives “…to be as efficient as we possibly can with the resources we have.”

Even though call volumes are up overall, Overman doesn’t subscribe to the belief that crime itself is on the rise in the community.

“I think humans are humans, and a certain percentage of them struggle with, more often than not, addiction issues,” he said. “I wouldn’t suggest that the influx of people has brought a higher percentage of that.”

Moving forward, the KPD plans to conduct a professional staffing survey to gauge whether its current roster sufficiently meets the community’s needs. Overman considers this measure the “most effective” tool to potentially improve the police department’s operations.

STAFFING ADJUSTMENTS and partnerships already in place have brought significant help to the department, Overman reported.

He was particularly pleased with the role of the new co-responder added two years ago through Western Montana Mental Health Center. The co-responder goes with officers to incidents involving mental health crises and, in many cases, helps divert those individuals to mental health services.

Overman said the co-responder position has been especially effective in bringing down law enforcement call volumes for people who are responsible for repeated calls, some of them between 70 and 80 calls per year.

The co-responder responded to 411 calls last year.

Technological improvements have also allowed the department to keep pace with demand, according to Overman. He recalled in 2000, Kalispell police didn’t even use car cameras, and now every officer wears a body camera. Officers produce about three hours of video footage every shift. They currently store 110 terabytes of data on two servers from body camera recordings.

“We use an amazing amount of data,” Overman said.

In the future, two of the biggest challenges facing the department will likely be housing to accommodate staff and space needs for the police department overall.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at 406-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.