Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason announced the creation of a Sheriff’s Community Response Unit aimed at dealing with issues in the county with “community oriented policing methods” in a Thursday release.
Amason’s goal was to create a permanent team that wouldn’t draw on the resources of patrol and investigation teams, he said. The unit will consist of five commissioned deputies and will focus on problems and disorders that affect the quality of life of Cleveland County citizens.
Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Mendi Brandon wrote in an email that CRU members are chosen based on their training and experience in crisis intervention and mental health as well as their character and service record. Two members have been chosen from the sheriff’s office, and the remaining three were hired for this role specifically. Some deputies assigned to the CRU will be Crisis Intervention Team certified and trained in de-escalation.
According to the release, Amason attended a Board of County Commissioners meeting Nov. 29 where a few Norman business owners discussed issues they’d had with individuals on Main Street and throughout downtown Norman. They said they’d contacted the Norman City Council and the Norman Police Department on the subject, and while both were sympathetic, they didn’t have the resources to provide a solution.
On July 31, UNR Resonator Fridge volunteers were forced to relocate their Main Street community fridge following complaints by business owners and the enforcement of city code. The Norman City Council and Norman’s assistant city attorney Anthony Purinton modified city code to allow for community fridges on private, non-residential property.
“This is why I created the Sheriff’s CRU,” Amason said in the release. “These deputies will use a wide range of resources to address these issues for the business owners and their customers while providing the homeless population with a variety of resource options. We want to help these individuals, giving them a hand up, but we will have zero tolerance for those involved in criminal activity.”
Brandon wrote in the email that the sheriff’s office plans to develop partnerships to become more well-versed in local resources, which Amason hopes might prevent future arrests.
The City of Norman and the Norman/Cleveland County Continuum of Care recently concluded the development of a homelessness strategic plan, with the help of Homebase, a nonprofit technical assistance provider. A recently released Homelessness Gaps Analysis report identified seven priority areas — safe and affordable housing, low-barrier housing and day services, supportive services, transportation, coordinated prevention assistance, data collection and analysis, and coordination to use limited resources effectively.
According to the report, the most recent point-in-time data from January 2020 indicates there are 266 homeless individuals in Cleveland County, with 45 percent of those unsheltered, living on the streets, in vehicles or encampments.
The Sheriff’s CRU plans to deal with issues of homelessness, but it won’t be confined to that, Amason said in the release. Though it can fill in other areas where needed, its main focus is addressing issues identified through citizens’ complaints, crime statistics and trends in data, information from other divisions within the sheriff’s office and instructions from the sheriff.
