THANKS TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS
CASPER, Wyo. — Casper residents will soon begin to see more deliberate law enforcement patrolling downtown, Casper Police Department officials told community members at the second of three public safety meetings on Thursday.
This follows a series of community safety meetings the police department hosted earlier this year intended to identify Casper residents’ concerns, with discussions focused on each of the city’s six patrol areas. Now, officers are again meeting with the community to share their plans to address those concerns.
Thursday’s public meeting focused on Areas 3 and 4. Area 3 encompasses downtown and much of northern Casper, while Area 4 is to its south extending to roughly West 27th Street, just past the Municipal Golf Course.
In the downtown area, Lt. Josh Albrecht said the most common crimes include public drunkenness and other alcohol-related charges, drug offenses, traffic violations, assault, disorderly conduct and vandalism.
In an effort to curtail the problems, Albrecht said the department will implement directed patrols in the area to keep the peace and deter situations from escalating.
Per the plan, the department will keep a team of two officers assigned to the downtown area during the times that issues are most prevalent, which for downtown means evenings, nights and weekends.
“The problems that happen there are usually Friday and Saturday nights,” Albrecht said.
The officers will not just patrol the downtown district, but will also establish proactive contacts with the downtown business owners, regular downtown visitors and transient and homeless populations in the area, he said.
Casper Downtown Development Authority member Bill Lyons, who was in attendance at Thursday’s meeting, praised the idea.
“I’m down there all the time, and I can definitely tell the difference when there’s a visible [police] presence versus when there’s not,” Lyons said. “I think it’s a great idea.”
Albrecht said the focused patrols will begin in the immediate future, and the department will analyze their effectiveness as time goes on to make adjustments if necessary.
In Area 4, Lt. Scott Jones said the key issues include traffic infractions, a variety of crimes and general public cleanliness and safety.
“You could call it urban blight, but we just like to say that this is improving the overall environment for the folks in these neighborhoods to give them the type of community they deserve,” Jones said.
Steps to improve the area include working with the Casper Parks Division and other relevant city departments to keep outdoor facilities clean and safe. More focused code enforcement, increased lighting and signage, removal of abandoned cars and other measures will also be taken to clean up the area.
“The Parks Department has already been great,” Jones said. “They’ll come down, take a look at something and say, ‘Yep, we can clear this out.’”
When it comes to crime in Area 4, Jones said the most common occurrences include drugs, public disturbances, vandalism and burglaries.
Similar to Area 3, Area 4 will implement more focused patrolling in locations that are known to be hotbeds for illicit activity, as well as areas that frequently see traffic troubles.
“As one of the former chiefs used to say, we don’t want to do random acts of patrolling,” Jones said. “It does me no good to go to a part of town with zero crime happening and deploy officers over there.”
The final of the recent round of meetings is scheduled for Friday, April 17 at the Ford Wyoming Center, set to begin at 6 p.m. Officials will discuss plans for Areas 5 and 6.
