Chamber of Commerce Meet -- Sept. 2, 2003 -- Collinsville, OK -- www.cvilleok.com

After status on many on-going Chamber of Commerce activities (including Founder's Day Sept.13th), Collinsville Chief of Police Charlie Annis was the main speaker. The Chief gave a 3 part assessment of the Collinsville Police Department after his 5 months on the job here. The Good: the quality and experience of the people on the force; and a move to a permanent headquarters soon. The Bad: too few people to cover 5 square miles (with ~4700 population); temporary facilities and no local jail. And the Ugly: old, unreliable, high mileage police vehicles; too few weapons and bullet proof vests; loss of records and equipment in fire; no training resources; and the condition of the animal shelter.

Chief Annis indicated the police force is composed 20 people. There are nine officers (6 street officers, 2 supervisors and the Chief). Those nine have 86 combined years of law enforcement experience. There are 3 part time officers (including Billy Higgins with 41 years experience himself). There are 5 dispatchers and one animal control officer.

Between January and July of this year the police had 2451 contacts. Those contacts included 1638 warnings, 30 traffic accidents, 232 traffic arrests, 32 drunk drivers, 42 driving under suspension, 62 drug arrests, 32 public drunks, 8 domestic arrests, 14 violations of domestic orders, 10 assults, 38 domestic contacts and various others.

The nine full time officers are Chief Charlie Annis, Ronnie Stevens, Daniel Boggs, Travis Linzy, Bryan Smith, Jimmy McBee, Steve Luttrel, Chad Goodner and Ronnie Thompson.

Chief Annis indicated than a private citizen had recently purchased two new bullet proof vests for the department. This, following a situation where there were not enough vests and some were being held together with duct tape. The police force is dealing with a reduced budget like all city departments. They are exploring additional grants and the potential for some funding from Homeland Security.