Is the Fourth of July the busiest day of the year for the Hannibal Police Department?
“I don’t want to say it’s the busiest time, but it is one of the busiest times,” said Hannibal Police Chief Lyndell Davis. “In years past it used to be quite the handful, but with the cooperation of the Jaycees and other people organizing events it has become a lot more manageable. Does it require a lot of additional staffing? Definitely so.”
This year the Hannibal Cannibal race, the Jaycees’ parade and the fireworks show will all occur on the same day.
“All those events require additional staffing for us to manage the volume of calls that we receive, as well as the influx of people that come out for that. When you increase the population in a small geographic area from a few hundred people to thousands of people, commonsense dictates that our calls for service will go up. We have to be ready for the unknown. We know from the past that if we don’t have the additional staffing our officers are overwhelmed. There’s always going to be a substantial increase in officer presence and staffing during Tom Sawyer Days,” said Davis. “I think we’re well prepared and over this holiday weekend people will see probably a substantial increase in our visibility.”
Depending on the event, sometimes the HPD presence is supplemented by deputies from the sheriff departments of Marion or Ralls counties, and the highway patrol.
“Often to carry out these events it’s a unified effort among local law enforcement,” said Davis.
To help provide a police presence in congested areas the HPD will rely on officers on bikes.
“It’s amazing how a bike officer can literally ride right up on somebody doing illegal activity,” said Davis. “That’s not the only reason we use the bikes. We’re also there to make people have more of a sense of security and let people know their is a police presence so even if they don’t have a criminal thing going on there’s somebody there to assist them. The bike officers needless to say can navigate through the crowds in congested traffic much easier than a car can, or one of our other vehicles. We’re there to help the public, not just arrest people.”
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Is the Fourth of July the busiest day of the year for the Hannibal Police Department?
“I don’t want to say it’s the busiest time, but it is one of the busiest times,” said Hannibal Police Chief Lyndell Davis. “In years past it used to be quite the handful, but with the cooperation of the Jaycees and other people organizing events it has become a lot more manageable. Does it require a lot of additional staffing? Definitely so.”
This year the Hannibal Cannibal race, the Jaycees’ parade and the fireworks show will all occur on the same day.
“All those events require additional staffing for us to manage the volume of calls that we receive, as well as the influx of people that come out for that. When you increase the population in a small geographic area from a few hundred people to thousands of people, commonsense dictates that our calls for service will go up. We have to be ready for the unknown. We know from the past that if we don’t have the additional staffing our officers are overwhelmed. There’s always going to be a substantial increase in officer presence and staffing during Tom Sawyer Days,” said Davis. “I think we’re well prepared and over this holiday weekend people will see probably a substantial increase in our visibility.”
Depending on the event, sometimes the HPD presence is supplemented by deputies from the sheriff departments of Marion or Ralls counties, and the highway patrol.
“Often to carry out these events it’s a unified effort among local law enforcement,” said Davis.
To help provide a police presence in congested areas the HPD will rely on officers on bikes.
“It’s amazing how a bike officer can literally ride right up on somebody doing illegal activity,” said Davis. “That’s not the only reason we use the bikes. We’re also there to make people have more of a sense of security and let people know their is a police presence so even if they don’t have a criminal thing going on there’s somebody there to assist them. The bike officers needless to say can navigate through the crowds in congested traffic much easier than a car can, or one of our other vehicles. We’re there to help the public, not just arrest people.”
