Hutto mourns fallen officer

Hutto Police Sgt. Christopher Kelley was killed June 24 while pursuing a suspect. Kelley was a seven-year veteran of the Hutto Police Department and a former sergeant in the Air Force. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

“He served his country, he served his community and he loved his family,” City Manager Karen Daly said. “That’s the kind of individual he was, and that’s the kind of individual we’ll remember him [as].”

  The Hutto Police Department is looking to increase the number of officers it has on the streets as the city continues to experience a population boom. In order to make policy decisions that could expand the police force, city leaders are asking the department for more information about how officers spend their time on duty. Hutto Police Chief Earl Morrison said calls for service in the city increased about 120 percent from 2008 to 2014, but the size of the police department remained the same. Morrison gave a presentation to City Council on May 7 as part of Hutto’s Public Safety Series and said the department has been frequently operating at minimum staffing—two officers and one sergeant on duty—for the past seven years. Despite the growing population, Hutto has maintained its low record of violent crime and was ranked among the top five safest cities in Texas based on FBI record analysis by two security companies this year. But the city is not getting any smaller, Morrison said. “Our violent crime right now is very low, but we do take the chance that as our population increases, our violent crime will increase,” he said.

Growing pains

When the department is operating at minimum staffing, officers are sometimes unable to make arrests for minor offenses because it could remove the officer from the field for too long, Morrison said. It can take nearly an hour to drive to and from the Williamson County Jail in Georgetown, and additional time to complete paperwork  following an arrest, he said. Similarly, a car accident can take multiple hours to resolve, Morrison said. “If we have a wreck at a busy intersection and everybody is tied up, we have to rely on Williamson County and Travis County [law enforcement] to help us,” he said. “We don’t have the manpower to be all over the city.” Although Hutto law enforcement occasionally relies on outside agencies, Mayor Debbie Holland said the police department is maintaining the city’s high safety ratings using limited resources. “We’re doing [the best] with the resources we have,” she said. “I recognize we’ve got some hurdles to get over, but I’m not getting the sense that there is a crisis and that’s one of the things I’ve been really proud of. With that said, a community that’s growing as fast as we are needs to be having these conversations now—so we don’t get behind.”

The data

Morrison said he would like to expand Hutto’s police force so officers can spend more time building community relations and making “self-initiated,” calls. “We’re taking up the whole day being reactive right now,” he said. City Manager Karen Daly said Morrison’s staffing plan needs to be supported by data such as how much time officers spend making self-initiated calls. “We want to make sure they have time to make self-initiated calls because that is what keeps us safe,” Daly said. “I think for Hutto, the discretionary patrol is what works for us. […] It’s keeping us in the top 10 safe cities in Texas.” Daly said measuring self-initiated calls will be the best way to determine the department’s needs—better than looking at population growth or calls for service. Once Hutto receives the requested data from county dispatch services, city officials will be able to evaluate law enforcement needs, she said. Prior to Hutto’s current overview of public safety, the city had not initiated a system for when and how to increase the size of the police force, Holland said.

The goal

Hutto will receive about 70 daily calls for service this year, according to Hutto Police Department projections, and Morrison said he would like his officers to be able to handle all those calls without relying on other agencies.

"... A community that’s growing as fast as we are needs to be having these conversations now—so we don’t get behind." –Debbie Holland, mayor

Morrison said he plans to request several new officers for next year, but did not release a specific number. Hutto currently employs 25 sworn officers. Neighboring city Taylor employs 27 officers and Leander employs about 41. In addition to adding manpower, the Hutto Police Department is also seeking to keep pace with new technological advances in law enforcement. Daly said the city is planning to install new police vehicle cameras and that officers are also piloting body cameras. Daly said city staff could make recommendations for police-related budget additions by the end of the summer. “The idea was we would finish the whole [public safety] series so the council had a really good idea on all the pieces and parts before asking them to come back and have policy discussions,” she said. “The Council is going to approve a budget Oct. 1. Depending on what’s in that budget determines what we will do in the next six months.”