Bloomfield Township’s annual police report shows increase in serious crime, drop in calls for service

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — Police Chief James Gallagher said 2022 was “an interesting year” for the Police Department.

“It was an interesting year for us, obviously, with the transition of Chief (Phil) Langmeyer — who did so many wonderful things for our agency — to the transition of me becoming chief, learning the role and developing the relationships,” he said.

Along with the chief, three lieutenants, two detectives, one dispatcher and a village officer retired, for a loss of over 200 years of combined service.

To help fill the gap, the Police Department hired five officers, two dispatchers and one animal welfare officer.

“As always, our mission of the Bloomfield Township Police Department is to ‘preserve the peace and protect our community with fairness, integrity, pride and respect,’” said Officer Nick Soley of the Bloomfield Township Police Department, who recently presented the department’s annual report to the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees.

“We really appreciate all you do,” said Trustee Valerie Murray.

In 2022, the Police Department handled 25,883 calls for service, down from 26,970 calls last year.

“A call for service is any call that our police respond to that comes in through our department — that also includes traffic stops and things that are found on patrol,” Soley said. “It slowed down compared to our calls in 2021, almost about 1,000 calls down.”

Despite calls for service dropping, the township saw a slight increase in “Part A” crimes — what Soley said are the “most serious crimes,” including sexual assault, robbery, murder, stalking and larcenies of high value items.

“This has been a strange year — really a year and a half going into 2023 — for Bloomfield Township. I don’t think I have ever seen or written as many press releases for serious crimes as we’ve had,” Soley said. “When I say serious, it doesn’t have to mean violent. They can still be property crimes, but we do see those crimes going on.”

In 2022, police investigated 809 “Part A” crimes — including 243 cases of fraud (including ID theft), 94 larcenies from vehicles, 83 larcenies from buildings, 62 cases of retail fraud, 59 drug violations, and 59 assaults, to name a few. There were also 12 use of force incidents, compared to 13 in 2021.

Last year, the Police Department reported 716 “Part A” crimes — including 228 cases of fraud (including ID theft), 70 larcenies from vehicles, 82 larcenies from buildings, 31 cases of retail fraud, 46 drug violations, and 57 assaults and other incidents.

In 2022, the department reported 302 “Part B” crimes — typically misdemeanors that carry less than a year in prison, such as minor thefts to driving-related incidents, such as impaired driving and hit-and-run crashes — compared to 309 last year. As for “Part C” crimes — which are relatively minor misdemeanors but also very common calls for service, like traffic crashes — police reported 23,302 in 2022, compared to 23,499 in 2021.

“When we are dealing with 38 stolen vehicles in four months, that takes patrol’s time away from being on the road, because they are investigating that,” Solely said.

Last year also marked the first full year of the mental health Co-Responder program — also known as CoRE — with clinician Hillary Nusbaum. The three participating police agencies — Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Auburn Hills — referred a total of 664 cases to Nusbaum last year, including 239 referrals from Bloomfield Township alone. The program has since been used as a model and was implemented by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and the Troy Police Department.

In September, the CoRE program was awarded a federal grant of $260,000 to expand its team by adding the Rochester Police Department and hiring a second clinician to handle the case load.

The township, Soley noted, prides itself on providing service-oriented policing, providing a number of services to residents.

“If our residents call Bloomfield Township and they need something and they reach our police dispatch, we don’t often say, ‘That’s not our job,’ or ‘That’s not something that we do.’ We find a way to handle it and get it done,” he explained.

Over the past year, the Police Department completed 1,451 vacation house checks, responded to 281 vehicle lockouts and made 415 routine school security checks.

Solely highlighted the department’s participation in Skate with a Cop, Welcome Back to School night, homeowner association meetings, neighborhood picnics, Halloween events, Christmas with Bloomfield, Special Olympics events and more.

“It’s hard to paint the full picture of what we do here, because it changes so much day to day. …  It’s not always running and gunning and arresting people. It’s a lot of service-oriented policing that we do, and we want to highlight that,” said Soley. “If you want us to get involved with your organization, reach out. We’ll find a way.”

The full annual police report is up on the township website at www.bloomfieldtwp.org, under “Police,” “Transparency,” and “2022 Annual Report.”

For more information, call Bloomfield Township at (248) 433-7700.