Bend PD releases 2022 Annual Report: Crime rates considered low by officials

(Update: Adding video, comments from police, city councilor)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Bend Police have released an annual report showing what happened with crime in the city during the past year.

It shows more than 70,000 calls for the department last year, 40,000 of which were non-emergency.

Another 25,000 were officer-initiated and in 2022 there were 12,000 calls to 911 for Bend police.

The police chief and city leaders seem encouraged by the results of the annual report.

City Councilor Anthony Broadman said Thursday, "I think the report confirms what we know about our police department, that it's a well-trained law enforcement agency in a growing community."

The 16-page report for 2022 looks at training within Bend PD, community engagement and accomplishments and breaks down the types of calls.

Police Chief Mike Krantz said, "Calls for service continue to rise at small percentages, not comparative to our population increase over the last several years." 

In 2020, there was a drop in calls for service and reported crimes. 

"That drop went along the lines naturally of Covid, and it continued in 2021," Krantz said. "Then in 2022, 2023 we saw those slightly increase back up again to pre-covid numbers." 

He said reported crimes are not rising as much as the population.

Here are the top three types of calls to Bend PD in 2022:

There were more than 4,000 unwanted subject calls - more than 1,800 for mental health and suicide and more than 1,700 for motor vehicle accidents.

"Our property crimes are our highest reported crimes," he said. "So things around car theft, car break-ins, unlocked vehicles having items stolen out of them."

The city's K-9 officers were involved in more than a 100 cases  - 75 for apprehension K-9 and 35 for drug detection.

The report also covers priorities.  

"Really getting the right resource to the call," Krantz said. "Frequently, the police are not the right resource, or what is needed necessarily for a call from the community."

"They may call the non-emergency line or 911 line, thinking that that's the number they call," he said. "So our job is to really educate our community and what maybe the right resource, and it may not always be the police." 

  A list from Safe Travel puts Bend in the No. 6 spot for the safest cities in Oregon and says crime rates are low - and that is affirmed in the latest annual report from Bend PD.