Sheriff’s Office responded to COVID challenges in 2020

Dodge County law enforcement officials had to respond to a variety of challenges last year as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Sheriff Scott Rose told the County Board last week.
“2020 was a challenging year for everyone,” Rose said.
COVID created new and unique challenges, he said, regarding PPE, social distancing, no in-person meetings, no foot traffic between departments in the Sheriff’s Office, disinfecting and cleaning, staffing concerns and more.
Despite the challenges, Rose said, the office still carried out their regular duties. Courts, he said, were the only area where activity really slowed down. They still provided 2,484 overnight stays in the Steele County adult Detention Center in Owatonna, Rose added.
In total, he said, dispatchers handled 10,491 calls for service in 2020.
“Lots of those calls were mental health related,” Rose said, with many related to mental health issues with weapons.
The calls included, he said, three suicide attempts, 31 suicide threats, 150 disturbance calls, 25 domestic calls, 40 narcotics, 29 DUIs and three DUI refusals. Calls also included 17 missing persons, four motor vehicle fatalities and 17 sudden death calls.
Dodge County provides law enforcement services for all rural areas and all cities in the county with the exception of Kasson and West Concord that have their own departments.
The county handles 911 calls for those two departments and also responds to those cities when needed. During 2020 there were 730 calls for service for the West Concord Police Department and 4,830 calls for the Kasson Police Department. Of those calls, 391 were emergencies where they asked for help from the county deputies.
The sheriff also is responsible for building/court security and started doing weapons screening in 2015. Since that time the Sheriff’s Office has screened more than 80,000 people coming into the courthouse complex. Traffic was down in 2020, Rose said, and starting in 2021 they will track annual numbers.
Rose told commissioners that over the year officers logged 369,797 miles, mostly patrol miles, over the 440 square miles of the county.