HELENA – The Helena Police are in the middle of pilot project aimed focusing on high volume call areas and community policing.
HPD started the project on July 16th.
The program uses school resource officers to assist patrol officers with areas residents have expressed concerns over. This includes areas that require extra officers during particularly busy periods, like the fairgrounds during the Last Chance Stampede.
The pilot project also had the officers help with complex investigations like the Hannaford street murder-suicide and the drug cases.
The officers focus their attention to problematic areas in unmarked police cars.
Danny David, a detective sergeant for HPD says “In my capacity, in an unmarked car, I see these crimes happening, and I just I think there’s a need for it. A need for more proactive community-oriented policing. I want to show that presence. I think that will help with lowering their crime rate in Helena.”
The Helena Police released statistics related to the first three weeks of the pilot program..
They say between the three officers, they confiscated 34 grams of meth and 10 grams of marijuana.
They made 167 traffic stops that resulted in 78 traffic citation.
Six felony arrests and seven warrant arrests were also made.
Helena Police Department say’s the project will wrap up on August 24th, and that they will be unable to continue it after the summer due to staffing, but add that they do consider it is a success so far.
Reporting by Mercedies Pruneda for MTN News
