Kirby says growth has changed the nature of crime, and the way his department deals with it

When Ron Kirby took over the Tooele City Police Department a decade ago, Tooele’s population was a mere 16,000, the sprawling commercial district north of 1000 North was still a dream, and most of the city’s northeast subdivisions had yet to be built.

Now, Kirby, a 29-year law enforcement veteran, is charged with keeping the peace in a city twice the size of the one he started working in.

Kirby, 52, started his law enforcement career in 1979 with a one-year stint as a reserve officer for Grantsville City. That was followed by 18 years with the Utah Highway Patrol in both Salt Lake and Tooele counties.

It was a career path that was always in the cards.

Growing up in a military family, Kirby moved around from place to place. It wasn’t until his family settled in Utah during his junior high years, when his dad was stationed at Fort Douglas, that Kirby found a permanent home.

His start in law enforcement came from family ties. His dad was a criminal investigator in the military. His brother Robert, a Salt Lake Tribune columnist, worked for a time as a police officer in Grantsville.

The Kirby tradition has spread to the next generation as well. The oldest of Chief Kirby’s children, Evan, 25, works for the Highway Patrol in Salt Lake. Chris, 23, works in Salt Lake as a police dispatcher. Only, his youngest, Sally, 21, is not involved in law enforcement.

The Transcript-Bulletin recently sat down with Kirby for a wide-ranging discussion on the changes he has seen in law enforcement in Tooele over the past decade.

Q: Describe the situation you stepped into as police chief in 1998. What was the state of the force at that time? What problems did you see and what steps did you take first to improve the force?

A: The department was ready for change at the time, probably for a number of reasons. One was the growth. I think ’98 was that first really big jump in population. It was a good department, but it was ready for change. In the last 10 years I’ve had one overriding vision for the department and that’s been I want people, when they see a police officer drive by, to have a good feeling. When I started, the direction where I felt we needed renewed focus was in the area of drug enforcement. One of the early things I did was moved Sgt. Roger Niesporek up into drug investigations and let him go to work. He had a reputation for that. He understood it. Then we needed to beef up our marked patrol, so I moved some officers from crime prevention into patrol. Then, I added a lieutenant to the department as another administrator. We had one lieutenant at the time, but to really give something like the patrol division the ability to move forward they needed their own commander.

Q: How has the department and the nature of police work in Tooele changed over the past decade? How has rapid population growth affected the work you do?

A: Technology has really changed law enforcement. The nature of police work — an officer responding to the call of a citizen needing help — hasn’t changed, but if you get into a police car now or if you look at the equipment on a police officer’s belt, it is very different. If you look at our records division and our records management system, and what officers are able to do in their cars now, it’s really changed. Basically, officers can write reports and do computer checks in their cars. Everything they used to have to check with dispatch is right at their fingertips. We are now trying to process so much information that we are just buried, so the challenge is trying to sort through all of the data and making use of it. I would love to hire an analyst to help us sort through that information. Rapid growth is the biggest challenge of the department. It’s so hard to keep up with. We have to provide a service for more people. With the growth comes changing expectations from the public as well. For example, look at animal control. Tooele has gone from more of a rural community, where it was not uncommon for pets to wander and that was more acceptable, to a more urbanized community. With that comes higher expectations.

Q: Are you still pushing for a larger police station? Why is that necessary? Describe where that process is at now.

A: We do need a bigger station, but that’s not really the issue. We need a new facility. Your building, whether you’re a police department or a newspaper, has to mirror your function. This building used to be an auto parts store. It was never intended to be a police station. The building wasn’t built to house evidence or a crime lab. We’ve basically outgrown this one. So we’re lucky we have really good support from the city council and the mayor, but the challenge of the police station is finding a site, acquiring the property, and securing the funding — and that’s where we are at now. It’s going to happen. We’ve been in this building for 20 years. It was old when we moved it, so we are hopeful for a change.

Q: What types of crimes do you feel like you’re making headway against and what types do you feel are becoming larger problems over time?

A: I think we have made headway with the drugs. Drugs are, always have been and always will be a problem. It’s not like we’ve solved Tooele’s drug problem, but if you look at how many meth labs there were around town in 1998 and you look at how many meth labs we are finding now, it’s a totally different picture. I think we’ve also made headway with the gangs. Is it still a problem? Absolutely, but we’ve done some good work with gang suppression and there’s a lot more work to do. The crime that we are experiencing more and more problems with is financial crime, like identify theft, Internet crimes and mortgage fraud. It’s one of the hardest to deal with because it is so complicated. Sometimes these crimes don’t have a paper trail and sometimes the paper trail is huge. Financial crimes also know no borders. It’s not only interstate, it’s international. Little Tooele is very limited in being able to address financial crimes that are international. Unless it’s a really big crime there just isn’t a lot of help out there. We have a detective now dedicated to financial crimes, which we didn’t have when I started. The workload just grew to a point that that’s all he does now. Other [growing crimes] are Internet crimes and crimes against children. When I look at the reports coming in each day, I’m really sickened by the number of crimes against children — Internet crimes, child abuse, child neglect. Sometimes I wonder if we are seeing more or if it is just getting reported more. People are more aware of it. Overall, I think if we took technology out of the picture, we wouldn’t see a lot of these types of crime. Pedophiles and child pornographers can send images so easily now. You don’t have to go find an underground magazine like you used to have to do — it’s just the click of a button.

Q: How has the ratio of violent crimes to property crimes changed over the past 10 years?

A: Property crime has gone up faster than violent crime. In fact, violent crime is hardly increasing. In 1998, we had 1,059 Part I crimes reported — which are crimes more serious in nature, including homicide, rape and robbery — and in 2007 there were 979 of those crimes reported. The numbers have remained pretty stable over the years. Part II crimes — which are less serious in nature — are currently down right now [2,795 in 2007 versus 3,301 in 2005], but the trend is upward. In 1998, we had 1,969 Part II crimes reported.

Q: Burglaries and graffiti seem to be growing lately. What are you doing to combat those two crimes?

A: We are targeting curfew violations and starting to address truancy. We are pushing really hard to get a receiving center — a place to take kids during the day or evenings when their parents aren’t available. These are the kids who are out doing the graffiti. We are the biggest area in the state without such a center. If we had one that would help us with our graffiti. To crack down on burglaries we really need residents to get involved with Neighborhood Watch. I’m always preaching Neighborhood Watch. Residents need to call us and we will help them set it up.

Q: How big of a problem are gangs in the city? What steps are you taking to stop gang proliferation?

A: Gangs, drugs and guns go together. It’s almost hard to separate them. We have two task forces that address gangs — our Drug Task Force and our Project Safe Neighborhood [a gun task force], both of which have gang components. Both of these task forces gather a lot of intelligence. With that information we are able to focus our efforts on either the neighborhoods or the individuals that are involved with the gangs. When we know who the gang members are, we know what to do and we can use our resources where they are needed.

Q: In recent years, the department has given more officers specialized training within the department — for example, officers who work with the Drug Task Force, Utah Gang Association, or the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. What’s behind this movement and what are the potential benefits to the community?

A: What’s behind it is the fact that gangs, drugs, financial crimes, all of it, don’t know any boundaries. They just go everywhere. We’ve got to cooperate with different agencies to address some of these crimes. We can’t do it alone. Nobody can do it alone. The benefit to the community is just better enforcement. When you look at Project Safe Neighborhood, where we have teamed up with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), we now prosecute people on gun crimes at a federal level where the penalties are a lot stiffer. This means we are able to remove dangerous people from the community for a lot longer. I also monitor every task force we have very carefully to see if we are getting the benefit out of the task force for what we are putting into it with resources.

Q: What are your future plans for the department? How much longer would you like to stay on as chief?

A: Getting a new police station is our biggest goal. We really need that. We’ve had some real challenges, not just the functioning of the building like I’ve talked about, but the age of it too. We’ve had leaks in the room that have disrupted things. We’ve had problems with plumbing and electrical. You don’t have to do much more than tour the building to understand. As far as how long do I plan to stay with the department? That’s up to somebody else. I don’t have any plans to leave. I’m very happy. The city is very great to work for.

Q: You see many of the worst aspects of society on a daily basis, why do you like this line of work?

A: I think the big reason is because of the difference you can make. Even though you might have to look at the ugly side of society sometimes, when you do things and you see a result — you see that an individual or the community is better off — than that is the reward. That’s why you do it. I think that is why every officer does it — because of that sense of helping.

Jamie Belnap: jamieb@tooeletranscript.com

jamieb@tooeletranscript.com