BPD chief illustrates case-clearing

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BLANCHESTER — Blanchester Police Chief Scott Reinbolt gave village council members a special presentation during Thursday night’s council meeting, addressing why the police budget is important to the department.

“One of the arguments I hear is, ‘Well, I’ve lived in Blanchester all my life and in the ’70s we had four cops. Why do we need seven?’,” said Reinbolt.

He pointed out that the village has had a low crime rate over the last three years. He said part of the reason is because the police department has cleared a lot of cases.

Reinbolt then gave council members and those in attendance an idea as to what a typical criminal investigation looks like for Blanchester police.

On a chalkboard, he laid out a typical investigation; the example was for a business getting broken into — it was not based on a particular incident.

The reason for this demonstration was to help illustrate how many steps, what goes into and how many hours it takes to handle one case. He also highlighted that a case investigation doesn’t stop at a certain time or at the end of the day, but that it takes many hours.

“In 2016, we did this 32 times. That’s once every two weeks,” said Reinbolt, “I harp on this all the time — we clear a high percentage of crime rates. When I came here we cleared seven percent of the cases, now we clear 25 percent.”

Also at council:

• A meeting with the Ohio Department of Transportation in regards to the train crossing on South Broadway Street will be at 9 a.m. on March 28. Mayor John Carman stated that the meeting is in regards to replacing the crossing signals.

• Council also decided to not records their meetings until they have sufficient funds to maintain the recording equipment.

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By John Hamilton

[email protected]

Reach John Hamilton at 937-382-2574

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