Dublin Division of Police

Proactive Policing for the 21st Century

TTHE DUBLIN DIvISION of Police and the City of Dublin have seen many changes over the last 30 years. We have grown to become the largest suburban community in central Ohio, with more than 42,000 residents – an increase of more than 800 percent since the early 1980s. We now have more than 15,000 private homes and more than 3,800 businesses.

Our City of 24.5 square miles is home to more than 35 business headquarters, including Cardinal Health, The Wendy’s Company and OCLC, as well as seven of the nation’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies. Dublin also has received national and international recognition as a great place to live and work, including the following honors:

• Forbes.com – 25 Best Places to Move in America

• Columbus Monthly – Best Suburban Community in Central Ohio

• Fox Business News – Best Small City in the U.S. to Start a Business

• Intelligent Community Forum – Top Seven Intelligent Communities in the World

To keep up with this growth and prosperity, the Dublin Division of Police also has grown and adapted over the years to become a highly effective, fullservice police agency. The Police Division, under the leadership of then-Chief

Ron Ferrell, first received recognition as an accredited police agency from the Commission for Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies in 1990, and has been re-accredited six times since. The last three accreditation awards have been the highest offered by CALEA: Accreditation with Excellence. In addition to traditional policing methods, our agency offers a wide variety of services to our community, including K-9 officers, school resource officers, bicycle and motorcycle patrols, vacation house watch services, and in-house training capabilities.

Our efforts to prevent crime and apprehend those who commit crimes begin with our community policing philosophy. We develop and focus each year on goals that take into account the community’s feedback via the City’s biennial community survey and from meetings with various community groups, our employees’ feedback, and our analysis of crime and traffic crash intelligence. This information has helped us to concentrate our efforts in recent years on the issues we feel are most important to our citizens: reducing property crimes, burglaries and traffic accidents; and preparation for addressing major crimes, critical incidents and community concerns.

Our efforts paid off in 2011, as we recorded significant reductions in all of these areas. Our efforts, however, cannot be successful without the cooperation of our residential and corporate neighbors. In working to partner with the community, we have strived in recent years to meet with as many of our neighborhood and business groups as possible to get your feedback and solicit your help in reducing crime. Our “Meet the Police” events have given us the chance to meet with more than 20 neighborhood and business groups in the last two years and hear their concerns.

In addition, we will be hosting our first-ever Citizen’s Police Academy in August. This will be an opportunity for members of our community to get a better feel for how the Police Division works within the community. We will

Crime and Crash Reductions for 2011*

Heinz von Eckartsberg

feature sessions on investigations, firearms, K-9 patrol, defensive tactics and crash investigation. In 2013, we’ll begin recruiting volunteers from our community to help serve as additional eyes and ears for the police by becoming volunteer Community Service Officers. CSOs will help the police by assisting with vehicle lock-outs and traffic control, working special events and conducting vacation house watches.

We also have partnered with our corporate neighbors through a cooperative group consisting of representatives of businesses within the community and members of the Division of Police. This group meets to share information and intelligence on issues occurring in the City and in central Ohio in an effort to reduce crime within the business community.

Another partnership example is our cooperation with Franklin County Safe Communities and the State of Ohio to provide programs to make Dublin a safer place to live and work. Programs such as Safe Ride (providing taxi vouchers to bars and restaurants to prevent driving while under the influence) and “Click it or Ticket” (promoting seat belt use) are partnerships to help us make our roads safer.

The City and the Division of Police cannot fight crime alone without the cooperation of our residents. Two ways in which everyone who lives in Dublin can help us reduce crime is by remembering two very important messages: “Like it, Lock it” and “Don’t be a Social Host.”

The “Like it, Lock it” message is our effort to remind everyone to help reduce the opportunities for crime to occur. Help us fight property crime by:

• Remembering to keep valuables out of your car when left unattended,

• Locking car doors,

• Installing and using a car alarm,

• Parking in a lighted area at night,

• Locking the doors and windows to your home,

• Keeping your garage door closed,

• Keeping shrubs and trees trimmed around doors and windows, and

• Using lights outside your home.

Our “Social Host” message is a request to the community to help us fight underage drinking by being aware that it is a crime to negligently allow anyone who is under the age of 21 to possess or consume alcohol in your home or other private place. More information can be found on the City’s website at www.dublinohiousa. gov or the Dublin Cares website at www.dublinohiocares.me.

We also encourage anyone who is a witness to or has information about a crime to contact the Division of Police. To provide information about a crime, residents can contact the Division of Police by calling us at 614889-1112 or by going to the City of Dublin website at dublinohiousa.gov/ police and scrolling down to “Submit an Anonymous Tip.” There you can submit detailed, anonymous information to the police and also receive a disposition as to what has been done to investigate the issue presented. This feedback from the community is one of the most important factors in helping us to fight and solve crime in our community.

Dublin has grown over the years to become a vibrant, thriving, world-class community. With your help, we also can continue to be one of the safest communities in Ohio.

Heinz von Eckartsberg was appointed Dublin Chief of Police in March 2011. He has been a member of the Dublin Division of Police since February 1983. His career has included assignments as a patrol officer, patrol sergeant, operations bureau commander, services bureau commander and interim police chief.

As operations bureau commander, he supervised the Division’s patrol section and K-9 unit and was instrumental in developing the Division’s Problem-Oriented Policing and motorcycle units. As services bureau commander, he was charged with managing the Division’s Community Education Unit, which includes DARE and school resource officers; investigative section; and the coordination of safety for all City special events, including the PGA Tour’s Memorial Tournament, the Dublin Irish Festival and the Can-Am Police and Fire games. He also has been responsible for managing the Division’s accreditation section, community relations and recruiting efforts.

Chief von Eckartsberg holds a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership from Franklin University. He also is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command, and the Ohio Police Executive Leadership College. He is a member of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Chief von Eckartsberg is a lead management consultant for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and has been a member of the OACP’s Advisory Services Committee since 2003.

By L T. J OHN F. D E J ARNETTE ,