Public safety leaders: Repeat offenders driving crime numbers

Sioux Falls crime levels generally are steady with last year — but it’s being driven largely by repeat offenders, including those who are violating parole.

That’s the conclusion of a group of public safety leaders who gave an overview of the safety-related issues in Sioux Falls today.

“Sioux Falls is still a very safe community to live in,” Mayor Paul TenHaken said. “Many of the crime issues we see in our community especially the last several years have been really cyclical crime issues — people who have been known to us in law enforcement, people who are known to us in the community.”

Overall calls for service in Sioux Falls through August are steady with a year ago, at about 86,000, police chief Jon Thum said.

“As our population grows dramatically, we’re not seeing the same increase in calls for service,” he said.

The city totaled three homicides through August, then added two in September, which is behind the eight for the first eight months of 2020 and ahead of two in 2021.

“We’re not pleased with any homicide, but we’re also not naive to think we’re not going to deal with that annually,” Thum said, pointing to the department’s clearance rate in solving cases, which is “far and above in almost all areas the national average,” he said.

“We put our whole hearts into these investigation. We really take it as a personal measure of pride and our honor to seek justice in these cases.”

Rape cases dropped to 58 through August compared with 86 and 85 the last two years.

Both aggravated and domestic assaults are up year-over-year, but in 2021, the city defied national trends and saw a decrease, Thum said.

“While we have seen an uptick, in some of these assaults it is very similar to where we were in 2020.”

Looking more closely at the numbers, “we’re seeing a lot of repeat offenders,” he continued. “We’re seeing a lot of people who are no stranger to our system.”

Many inmates release on parole end up staying in Sioux Falls or Rapid City even if they are from more rural areas or might like to return to a farm or live with family, Minnehaha County sheriff Mike Milstead said.

The reality is parole officers live in or near larger cities, and “because we have the resources in Rapid City and Sioux Falls, many of the people are released on parole in our community that didn’t commit a crime in our community.”

Last week, TenHaken organized a call with law enforcement and Gov. Kristi Noem’s office that included the secretary of the Department of Corrections to discuss the issue, Milstead said.

“We had a great conversation. I was encouraged by what the secretary said,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for us as leaders in our cities or counties to say let’s revisit it.”

There also are more firearms in the community, TenHaken said.

“We are a state that loves the second amendment, as do I, but there are more firearms and there are more people who are willing to use firearms,” he said, adding that unlocked vehicles also provide an opportunity for thieves to find guns and then use them to commit crimes.

Uncooperative victims also are providing an added challenge for law enforcement, Thum said. That’s been more prevalent about the younger population, where there seems to be “some code of snitching or some code of not cooperating,” he said, adding that in the cases of assaults often the suspect knows the victim and won’t share who it is because assaults are committed by people you do drugs with, commit crimes with or love.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t rather aggreavating when someone is shot or stabbed and they know who did it,” he said.

Robbery numbers are up, and while there aren’t trends such as casino or gas station robberies, police are noticing “it’s people stealing from each other, sometimes very inconsequential things,” Thum said. “The robbery numbers are pretty broad, everything from a bank robbery to taking somebody’s cell phone.”

Burglaries, which involve entering someone’s occupied or unoccupied structure, also have seen an uptick.

While 2021 was a record year for fentanyl “like never before,” there also was a record number of deaths, he said. This year is behind last year but still ahead of 2020.

The Sioux Falls area also is experiencing fentanyl overdoses after the drug is hidden in counterfeit pills, Milstead said.

He blamed Mexican drug cartels for smuggling it into the country as well as the dark web for allowing e-commerce to send pills through U.S. mail. Those are disguised as prescription pills such as Vicodin or Xanax.

“If you are not involved in the drug community, we live in a safe community,” Minnehaha County state’s attorney Daniel Haggar said, adding his office is striving to prosecute those who violate parole and commit violent crimes.

“Make it hard for people to commit violent crime. Don’t leave firearms in cars that are unlocked,” he said. “You don’t want one of your guns used to shoot at law enforcement to shoot at children, innocent people.”

He also encouraged residents to cooperate with law enforcement if called to testify against someone they know in court, “even thought that’s hard to do.”

Overall, as the city grows, crime per capita is holding fairly steady, TenHaken said.

“Of all the charts that we look at, this is the one I watch the most,” TenHaken said.