Sheriff Task Force posts strong numbers
Violent crimes unit makes 202 arrests in six months; taking guns, drugs off the streets
The Howard County Sheriff’s Department launched a violent crimes task force last July, and no time was wasted in bringing criminals to justice. Bad guys, guns, and drugs were removed from the community as the unit hit the streets.
In a report to the Howard County Council on Jan. 25, Howard County Sheriff Jerry Asher disclosed that the task force arrested 202 criminal suspects in its first six months of operation. It also confiscated 75 guns and seized thousands of doses of illicit and prescription drugs.
“I think it has been a great start,” said Asher. “It was very impressive to have so many arrests in just six months. It was important that we got so many guns off the street. We know we had a lot of shootings in Kokomo. Getting the guns off the street is great for us.”
The task force includes five officers from the sheriff’s department, along with officers from the Kokomo Police Department and Indiana State Police, agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Howard County Community Corrections.
The sheriff and his deputies expressed their thanks to the council for the hiring of five officers in 2021, which allowed the sheriff to move five veteran officers into the newly formed task force.
“Thank you for allowing us to do this,” said task force member Deputy Alex Steele. “We couldn’t do this without the help of the entire task force.”
Asher explained that the task force didn’t just remove 75 firearms from circulation. It also processed 34 of them, which could aid other law enforcement agencies in solving crimes.
“When we recover the gun, we can test fire it and categorize the bullet,” said Asher. “We send that information to a federal database. That way, if there is a murder in Gary, we might have recovered a bullet here that matched it. I would love to say we solved a murder doing that. I hope someday that we might.”
Following are the statistics from the Sheriff Taskforce Unit for July 2021 through December 2021:
Arrests
State Felony: 116
State Misdemeanor: 69
State Total: 185
Federal Arrest: 17
Total Arrests: 202
Drugs Seized
Marijuana: 4,751.1 grams
Meth: 535.48 grams
Pills: 1,436 dosage units
Fentanyl: 154.4 grams
MDMA: 42 grams
Spice/lookalike: 153 grams
Cocaine: 73.8 grams
Heroin: 127.1 grams
Total: 5,836.88 grams (more than 12.8 lbs. of illegal substances)
Guns Confiscated/Recovered
Handguns: 46
Long guns: 29
Total: 75
Assets seized
U.S. currency: $87,344.62
Vehicles: 5
Gambling tickets/pull tabs: 301,000
Search Warrants executed
DNA: 9
Device (cellphones, etc.): 65
Social Media: 53
Residence: 31
Phone records: 16
Vehicles: 24
Total: 198
Other activity
Traffic stops: 113
Surveillance details: 182
K9 deployments: 16 (with 14 arrests)
Home visits with Community Corrections: 168