Billings Police Department’s 2015 Annual Report Filled with Stats and Surprises [Opinion]

Billings continues to be a very safe place to live, but a couple of stats stood out for me from the Billings Police Department's 2015 Annual Report.

The north central part of Billings had the biggest jump in calls with 13,058, which is up 1,500 calls from last year. While, believe it or not, the south side had the smallest number of calls with 6,719. That one surprised me.

The big jump came in vehicle thefts. Some 792 vehicles were stolen in Billings last year. That is a jump of 176 over 2014. Now, I don't know how many of these were cars left running or even just with the keys left in them, but I'd bet the number is pretty high.

Our K-9 program seized more than $1 million last year with  $813,000 coming directly from drug seizures. Good! Now, let's use some of THAT money to get more cops on the street. Build bigger jails. It's time to make the criminals pay, instead of the taxpayer footing the bills for everything.