Mayor credits neighborhood policing for drop; use of force down 27 percent

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Building a stronger community, one word at a time.

The City of Kokomo will submit its annual crime statistics report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting Program sometime this month, and it shows that crime is down in the city, continuing a trend that has existed for most of this century.

Mayor Tyler Moore shared a portion of that report with the Kokomo Lantern recently -- specifically the Internal Affairs report from the Kokomo Police Department’s Professional Standards Unit. And he spoke generally on the overall report. The conclusion he found is Kokomo is a safer city than ever.

“It’s nice to see that crime is still trending down,” said Moore. “I think a lot of that has to do with the slow increase of officers, and a lot of their continued, intentional, community interaction. They’re making more of a point to get out and be more visible.”

The police department also delivered services at a more affordable price, Moore claimed, with $1.6 million of the budget returned to the city’s general fund at the end of 2024. Part of the savings, Moore admitted, was due to unfilled officer slots. While budgeted for 92 officers, the Kokomo Police Department currently employs 89. And the department saved $250,000 in supplies and equipment. Still, the city got lower crime rates for $1.6 million less than expected.

"They are minding the store," said Moore.

The mayor also praised Kokomo Police Chief Doug Stout for proactively transferring officers to different duties before they become “burnt out.”

“I think part of it is Chief Stout getting the right people in the right places,” said Moore. “It’s realizing when someone may be getting burnt out or might need a change of pace and not being hesitant to reassign somebody.”

The internal affairs report details complaints against officers, use of force, and potential bias in terms of age, gender, or race. It shows a decline across the board in all of these categories, though the racial disparity that strongly exists across the Midwest and nationally in terms of arrests and incidents is reflected in Kokomo as well.

The department fielded 27 formal and informal complaints filed against officers in 2024. Of those complaints, nine were formal, and one of those was substantiated, resulting in the termination of a probationary officer. Two other formal complaints were found to be unsubstantiated. The disposition of the remaining six formal complaints is not included in the report.

The 18 informal complaints also were investigated. The report indicates that one of those complaints was not substantiated, but it is silent on the outcome of the remaining 17.

The department made 1,603 arrests in 2024, including 416 juveniles. Of those arrested, 493 were Black or African American, and 1,065 of them were White or Caucasian. That represents two percent of the total White population.

More than 30 percent of those arrested were Black. By comparison, 10.8 percent of Kokomo’s population identifies as Black or African American. Arrests were made on 7.6 percent of them. This represents a per capita disparity above the national average, but the overall arrest rate is roughly one half of what is reported across the Midwest.

(Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, the Prison Policy Initiative, and the National Library of Medicine.)

The department wrote 792 traffic citations in 2024. Of those, 25 percent were issued to persons of color, again in excess of the ratio in population but below national and regional rates.

Officers were recorded using force during incidents 66 times in 2024. Of those, only 33 were deemed necessary. Eleven were committed against animals. As a result of the incidents, 55 people were arrested; 42 percent of them were Black or Hispanic.

All of the incidents were reviewed, and one resulted in an informal complaint that was eventually deemed to be unfounded. There was no detail on the disposition of the 33 cases of uses of force that were not deemed necessary.

“When evaluating the use of force by age, race, and gender, there are no indications of bias,” the author of the report wrote. “The most common offender was a white male between the ages of 36-50.”

The types of force used in the incidents were tracked. Of the 66 incidents, 55 of them involved an empty hand. Two involved a baton or impact weapon. Officers deployed a taser 25 times. A K9 officer was used as physical force twice. Shots were fired by officers 11 times. It must be noted that 33 incidents involved multiple uses of force.

The report contends that none of the use of force incidents were considered excessive. There were 35 reports of injury or pain from “offenders.” Officers were injured 17 times during the use of force. And nearly half of the incidents involved some form of impairment, either by alcohol, narcotics, or mental disturbance.

While some of these statistics may raise a few eyebrows, they all represent a decline in police activity from year to year. Calls for service were down nearly two percent in 2024, and there were 25 percent fewer arrests of adults and 11 percent fewer juvenile arrests. And use of force was down 27 percent as compared to 2022.

The report found these conclusions satisfactory.

“After reviewing and evaluating the Kokomo Police Department Use of Force reports for 2024, there is no indication of any significant issue with the current practices of the department,” the author of the report wrote. “All instances of force were well within department guidelines. The total number of adult/juvenile arrests in 2024 was 1,603. There was an overall 3.4-percent Use of Force rate when the Kokomo Police Department encountered individuals for arrest or to be detained for an Immediate Detention Order. This is a 0.3 percent decrease from 2023.”

(Photos from the Kokomo Police Department)