Beatrice Police and Fire Chiefs present annual reports

BEATRICE – The total number of calls answered by the Beatrice Police Department annually stays fairly steady. The one big change in 2024 was a drop in Southeast Communications Dispatch calls due to the loss of dispatching for Richardson County in the southeast corner of the state.

Beatrice Police handled 11,577 calls for service in 2024….on par with the prior two years. Chief of Police Jay Murphy said overall calls from outside the city to the Southeast Communications Center numbered 19,645….down 4,566 because of the loss of dispatching for Richardson County.

Murphy said police arrests were up, during 2024. "We did increase about ten percent...in arrests in 2024 than we did in 2023. We went from 580 to 640."

Beatrice Police has 25 certified officers, 10 dispatchers and a director. The department added an investigator with three now designated, has two school resource officers, two K-9s and ten marked vehicles.  "We've got one guy who just got out of field training. Our newest guy, which is our last guy, is in field training, right now. I'm proud to say that we are full-staffed and probably within two or three months, he'll be out on his own and we'll be full staffed...which we haven't been for awhile."

Resource officer duties have expanded part-time, to the new Beatrice elementary school. "A juvenile services officer is now in the elementary school....not really a full-time SRO, but we put her in there one day a week just to kind of communicate with the kids...just be there so the kids get used to an officer in school..when they move on to the middle school or high school."

Chief Murphy said 2024 included the hiring of five officers to bring the department up to full staff…the appointment of two community relations officers that help with citizen relations and community events that involve police.  Another accomplishment was establishing an internal drug task force which may have accounted for some of the increase in arrests, the past year.

As for the department’s patrol units, Murphy said two license plate readers were added to a couple of patrol units that can detect plate numbers as an officer passes by a vehicle.  Murphy says local police are currently working with Southeast Community College on the possibility of resuming an internship program within the criminal justice program.

 
Beatrice Fire and Rescue handled about three-thousand calls in 2024. Chief Brian Daake says the department’s three-shifts of personnel stay very busy.  "We average about 7, 8, 9 calls a shift, depending on how things are going."  Daake says frequently, calls overlap. Out of the 2,970 total calls…..there were 1,446 that were overlaps.

"Two calls going on at the same time, or three or four. We did have a period last year where we had a set of ten. Earlier in March of this year, we blew that one out of the water. Nearly 42 or 43 percent of our calls that happen throughout the time, we have more than one incident going on, at the same time."  Frequently, the department pages off-duty staff to provide support, when multiple calls are in progress.

Firefighters work 24-hour shifts….each member working ten per month. The department handles ambulance and rescue calls for about the southern two-thirds of Gage County and has an agreement to serve the town of Wymore. There’s a mutual aid agreement with surrounding counties that can send units outside the county.

The past several months, department personnel have answered several house fires….and recently, handled a major fire at the condemned vacant former Dempster Manufacturing Plant. Mayor Bob Morgan said that incident displayed the dedication of the department’s members.  "I'm also impressed with the number of young firefighters that have really embraced being in Beatrice so much, that they are moving here."

The Beatrice Fire and Rescue Department employs several paramedic-level personnel and the department also provides ambulance transport services to medical facilities outside the city.