Ferris PD successfully closes active cases

FERRIS – With a total of 11 personnel at the Ferris Police Department, the small team has recently closed a good portion of active cases in the city – some that have been open for a while.

Ferris Police Chief John DeLeon said, “The majority of the cases that are still active are either thefts, burglaries, whether they are home, business or vehicle and a handful of assault cases where the investigations are in process. 

“The latter type of calls takes more leg work based on witness gathering along with witness statements and or canvasing the areas for any video available be it from residences or businesses.”

DeLeon said when he became the city’s police chief, he began looking at the department’s report writing system, Cardinal Badge.

The reporting system has been in place in Ferris for more than 15 years. 

The use of Cardinal Badge means every call coming in to the 911 dispatch center generates a service number and response. From there, the officer looks at the nature of the call, and based on the type of call decides if there is an arrestable on-view offense, an offense where there is a victim but the perpetrator has left the location – in which case the report gets sent to the investigator for a follow up, or it is simply an informational call where the officer, for documentation purposes, generates a report.

A recent audit of the Badge report writing system showed from Jan. 1, 2000 (which was the first date entered into Badge), until when the audit was conducted Oct. 31, 2019, there were 1,650 open and active cases. 

“This is where I have assigned our lieutenant, investigator and sergeant to go through each case and figure out which cases had the statute of limitations expire, which cases we can still proceed with accordingly, and which cases can be unfounded based on a number of circumstances and or noncooperation of victims as well as leads going cold,” DeLeon said.

So far, the group he assigned to the caseload has been able to solve and or suspend a total of approximately 81 cases based on the explainable combination of factors. 

Two of the biggest cases still plaguing Ferris are the two double homicides that happened approximately 10 to 12 years ago, and one-year apart. 

Both are still being actively worked on with other agencies helping as well.

As far as other implementations for the Ferris Police Department, DeLeon concluded, “at this point, I believe I have a good crop of officers working the streets and helping me manage the office. Existing departmental policy and procedures will be looked at and will be reevaluated, and changes will be done accordingly if needed.”