by John McLoone

The Hastings Chamber of Commerce hosted Police Chief Bryan Shafer on a business Zoom call Friday morning, and he gave an enlightening presentation on the effect of COVID-19 on his police force and the community.

Shafer said his department – so far – has come through the pandemic in fairly good shape.

“There has not been a spike in COVID cases in the department,” he said. “Just in the last four weeks, there have been a total of 15 of the 37 staff who had symptoms. Out of that we’ve had four total cases. It hasn’t taken its toll as far as service and staffing.”

It did change the way the police have done business this year, and it has had a dramatic impact on some types of crime.

“When COVID first hit, we changed our approach. We changed from a proactive enforcement mode to more of a reactive, high-visibility protection and public safety mode,” Shafer said. “Our officers watched out over the open businesses and kept a special eye out for those that were closed. It was really becoming a protector,” he said. “We had to take a lot of precautions too. We didn’t know what this would be. We used a lot of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), a lot of sanitizing, a mask mandate, reducing the number of people in the office at a time. We took it very serious and we still do.”

“Since about July when we started to see things were kind of opening up. People were getting anxious. We had to get back more into a proactive mode. We were just getting busier, and we didn’t want it to get out of control.”

Shafer said that crime was down about 30 percent with the start of the pandemic but the numbers have increased greatly since mid-summer.

“We’ve basically moved back into pre-COVID mode,” he said. “For the most part, our crime those first three months, we had a significant reduction. We’ve regained a lot of that. We were about 30 percent below normal, and we’ve regained half of that.”

Assaults and vandalism lead the list.

“Most of our cases have been in assaults. They’ve almost doubled this year. Our vandalism has doubled. Those are the two biggest ones, along with disorderly conduct. They go hand-in-hand,” said Shafer. “There’s been a significant increase in mental health calls, attempted suicides, overdoses. Before COVID, we had maybe a crisis call once or twice a week. Now it’s once per shift.”

“We know this is pushing us all. They are really sparking now, and they’re some pretty severe mental health crises,” said Shafer.

On top of that, some chose to use extra stimulus money to buy drugs or alcohol.

“That just exasperated it even more,” he said. “It’s been quite an eye-opening experience.”

See Chief Bryan Page 3

Police Chief Bryan Shafer Police Chief Bryan Shafer

From Page 1

Shafer credits his department’s training in crisis management.

“Our officers are highly trained in crisis mitigation. They’ve done a great job,” he said.

Complaint calls There have not been a lot of calls for COVID-related problems, Shafer said, such as businesses not following regulations.

“We’ve not had a lot of complaints. We’ve probably had a dozen complaints since the beginning of COVID, specifically relating to businesses. For the most part, people have been very good,” he said. ‘We’ve still taken the approach and the recommendation of the Department of Public Safety to warn and educate and we respond to any calls we get. We’ll continue to do that.”

He’s concerned with businesses that may try to work around the latest Executive Orders of Gov. Timothy Walz.

“Our approach starting tonight is that everything is closed at 10,” he said of bars and restaurants. “I’ve been to a couple businesses in the last couple days. I’m seeing and I’m hearing that some of the people are moving the seating away from their bar, but they’re pushing tables up against the bar. In my mind, that’s an extension of the bar. Basically, the rule is you can’t be standing up and you can’t be standing or sitting at the bar.”

He said he had a call in for clarification on the order.

“As you heard the governor say, it’s people who are trying to get around some of the rules is the reason they’ve had to clamp down. It’s all of our responsibility to make sure these rules are being followed,” said Shafer.

Officer Morale Shafer was questioned on the morale of his staff.

“The morale is excellent,” he said. “In fact, most of the officers could not wait to get going again after I pulled them back at the beginning of COVID. I’ve had less sick calls since COVID. People just want to be here.”