The 2017 111th Circleville Pumpkin Show was safe, fun, and welcoming to everyone while having record attendance. We were able to provide this safe environment through careful planning, partnerships, and a desire to constantly improve our law enforcement skills. Our goal was to seamlessly blend in and make the event safe while still aggressively stopping criminal activity. This year this was done with several partner agencies. These agencies included the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office, Chillicothe Police, The Ohio State Highway Patrol, Circleville Municipal Court Probation, Columbus Fire Department Bomb Squad, Circleville Fire Department, Ohio Investigative Unit, Homeland Security, Pickaway County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Circleville Law Directors Office.
For obvious safety and security reasons we will not go into the details of what was done as this could impact future Pumpkin Show tactics we may use. To make the Pumpkin Show safety a success every resource of the Circleville Police Department is requir ed for that week. Officers work a minimum of 12 hour shifts with all days off cancelled. Additionally, we depend on the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office to partner with us as they have always done and help us protect this massive event. Without Sheriff Radcliff and his Deputies, it simply would be impossible for us to provide services to our community during the Pumpkin Show. Chief Keith Washburn and Chillicothe Police Officers augmented us in downtown Pumpkin Show operations as well as operations throughout the community. Throughout the summer several neighboring law enforcement agencies assisted each other during large events, such as the Pumpkin Show, and during targeted enforcement operations. We used these relationships and deployed these partner agencies during the Pumpkin Show in various capacities.
Often in the years past it has be difficult for us to conduct self-initiated enforcement and investigations as well as investigation into reported crimes and drug activity. With our partner agencies helping us this year we were able to conduct more self-initiated activity which led us stopping several crimes as they occurred. A major accomplishment was our ability to decrease accidents through traffic patrol and enforcement during the Pumpkin Show by 43% com pared to 2016. Our team efforts lead to arrests for drug trafficking, prostitution, theft, assault, and the confiscation of $3200 associated with drug activity. During the Pumpkin Show two drug houses were closed due to arrests. A third drug house closed due to the drug enforcement operations where the occupant called the detectives bureau and left a message.
He said that, ‘you know who I am and you know what I do. I am no longer dealing and I want you to know that it’s over.’ For us that was a great accomplishment to know that our enforcement was putting pressure on those dealing drugs in our city so much that they stopped. Some of the statistics used to determine how successful our collaboration was can be found in our general activity compared to the Pumpkin Show in 2016.
| Action | 2016 | 2017 | |
| Offense Reports | 126 | 217 | |
| Parking Citations | 56 | 146 | |
| Traffic Citations | 50 | 107 | |
| Incident Reports | 32 | 44 | |
| Accident Reports | 21 | 12 | 43% Reduction |
Through aggressive drug enforcement during the summer the relationships were in place to use our techniques during the Pumpkin Show. These operations over the summer were supported by Mayor Mcllroy and without him this would not have been possible. He has given the order to find ways to stop drug abuse in our city and help the families and children impacted by drug abuse in any way we can. Safety Director Jacobs has taken the Mayor’s order and lead the Police Department towards finding all solutions to stop the opiate epidemic in Circleville. He has constantly worked towards ways to fund our operations and supported us in everything we do. This epidemic contributes to several other crimes such as domestic violence, assault, theft, child abuse and
neglect, human trafficking, and prostitution just to name a few. Over the past months we have worked with other agencies more than we ever have in the past. This started with Chief Washburn from Chillicothe Police telling us the success he has had in his community using new tactics in a partnership with the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Chief Washburn introduced several new ideas and tactics that has changes how we conduct drug enforcement. We worked together to solve some common problems and along with Sheriff Robert Radcliff of the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office conducted several successful operations. To provide a traffic enforcement solution the Ohio State Highway Patrol Motorcycle Unit, Pickaway County Sheriff’s Deputies, and Circleville Police Officers were sent to areas in the city with unsafe traffic conditions through real-time reports by citizens on Facebook. Also, saturation patrol was conducted by several agencies inside of Circleville to simultaneously patrol areas known for drug related crimes. The agencies who helped in this operation were the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office, Chillicothe Police, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Circleville Municipal Court Probation, Major Crimes Unit to include Logan Police, Lancaster Police, Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office, and assistance from the Circleville Fire Department. This allowed a level of simultaneous saturation patrol that simply would not have been possible without the help of our partner agencies.
The following pages illustrate some of our accomplishments over the summer. As you can see we conducted a wide variety of operations in addition to our regular patrol operations. In these pages, you will see several agencies working with us in our city. These accomplishments were only in the City of Circleville and if we attached all the operations from our partner agencies it would be dozens more pages. These are just some of our achievements in Circleville however there were many more we didn’t include. We are making a difference and if you would like to follow what we are doing please like us on Facebook and Twitter! Our citizens are an intricate part of our collaborative team as they constantly report suspicious drug activity and other crimes to us at 740 -477-DRUG or [email protected]
In closing I want to say from the bottom of my heart that I enjoy serving the citizens of Circleville. The officers of the Circleville Police Department do a wonderful job and they are truly dedicated to the citizens. We simply want to be the best and provide the best service. I also appreciate the officers and leadership of all our partner agencies. By sharing knowledge, techniques, experience, and the passion for this profession our citizens get the highest quality of service available. I have become friends with several of these officers and I am proud of what they have accomplished during the Pumpkin Show and over this summer. Over my career I have become frustrated at times wanting to help our citizens and simply not always being able to find the ways to do so. This simple concept of sharing resources and working together is without any doubt the only answer and only option to solve our problems. I know this is the start of a dedicated team that is willing to evolve to combat the constant challenges that face all our communities. We have several ideas and plans for the future so those who wish to come to our beautiful city and do wrong be warned, we are here. You will come to know us and you will be held accountable for your actions.
