Laclede County Sheriff Matt Frederick, who took over in January, said his time in office “has been great so far.”
The staff is the same, but the Sheriff’s Office has undergone some remodeling, using space from the former dispatcher area.
Frederick credited his Sheriff’s Office employees for the smooth going.
“We have all the right people for all the jobs we need to get done,” he said. “The command team that I have are great folks and make this place run well. (Former Sheriff) David Millsap did such a good job getting the right folks working here.”
Frederick said the job has been what he expected for the most part, but he had hoped to get on the road more doing police work.
“A lot of it is working here and supporting the folks and making sure they have everything they need so they can get out there,” he said. “I look forward to my moments when I’m able to get out on the road and go see people and do things out in the public.”
Frederick said a lot of people ask to speak with the sheriff, but he said many of the issues that come up could be resolved by deputies.
“I would say 95% of the time, whatever it is they want to talk with me about, they knew me and wanted to bring it to me, but it’s something that any one of our deputies could have helped them with,” he said. “They can speak with any of the deputies. They all have the same authority to go out there and fix things and take care of folks.”
Frederick said one issue he has taken up as sheriff is loose dogs.
“I love animals, I have numerous animals at my house, but by gosh, we should feel safe in our community and be able to go for a walk, ride our bicycle and kids should be able to feel safe at the bus stop in the morning at the end of the driveway,” he said.
He said last year at this time, the office had taken 10 reports for dog bites.
“This year, we’ve taken 17 in the same amount of time,” he said.
Frederick said the problem comes down to people not taking care of their animals and taking actions to prevent the problem.
He said another issue facing his office is the shortage of personnel.
He said that according to FBI statistics, the Laclede County area should have two to two and a half deputies per 1,000 people.
“We’re at about 0.7 deputies per 1,000 here, so we’re significantly behind,” Frederick said.
He is hoping to add more deputies eventually.
He credits the state of Missouri’s Operation Relentless Pursuit for helping reduce some crime rates.
“We recently got a gentleman out of Phillipsburg that had been running from us for over a year now in different counties and has caused havoc in different counties. And we were able to get some folks from Operation Relentless Pursuit to come down here to assist us in order to catch him,” Frederick said.
“He is very good at running from the law,” Frederick continued. “And you know, without the folks from Operation Relentless Pursuit, we wouldn’t have had enough personnel to just sit on him and catch him.”
Frederick said Operation Relentless Pursuit is a state task force of law enforcement that travels around the state and helps smaller agencies.
“For this particular guy, we called and said, hey, this is where we believe he is. But I’ve only got two road deputies on at any given time, so if we’re taking calls back-to-back for things that are going on in the county and we’re reacting, I can’t be proactive, because I don’t have enough folks to sit on houses and watch people and monitor traffic, so these folks were able to come out, and then we were able to just pull our resources quickly and get the job done. Whenever we put the right people away, our property crimes go down.”
Frederick said illegal drugs continue to be a problem for Laclede County, including fentanyl and methamphetamine. Another issue is that the county is seeing fentanyl mixed with other drugs that make the Narcan antidote ineffective.
“We work with the Lake Area Narcotics Enforcement Group and the Lebanon PD trying to be as proactive as we can with all the other things happening in the county that we have to react to,” he said. “We do have a very strong treatment court now led by Judge (Larry) Winfrey. They’re only tackling about 20 folks at a time to help them with their substance abuse disorder, but it really does make a difference in their lives and for their families.”
Frederick noted that he did not lose a single person in the sheriff’s Office when he took over from Millsap in January.
“We’re always trying to recruit and get folks in, and it’s just been a blessing having the team of folks that I’ve gotten,” he said.
