Kay County Sheriff gives statistics report

The Kay County Sheriff’s Office/ Kay County Detention facility was built and opened for service in December of 2010, and through the years has grown with the community to the current service and staffing level.

The Sheriff’s Office is currently staffed with 19 sworn Deputies, with two full-time employees working in clerical, records, and budgetary positions. We also have six full-time employees in Emergency Communications/Dispatch and three Reserve Certified Deputies.

The full-time sworn law enforcement staff is divided up into certain job responsibilities and expertise; Sheriff, Undersheriff, Captain, 12 full-time sworn road deputies, one K-9 Deputy, one investigator, two courthouse deputies. The Kay County Sheriff’s Office provides regular deputy patrol, call response, transport, civil service, courthouse security and cover over 900 square miles of the county.

We also provide traffic enforcement and assist in collision investigation with the OHP. We do criminal investigations as well as drug and narcotic investigations. Through a cooperative agreement with the surrounding Law Enforcement agencies, they can provide our office with support if needed.

In the United States, a Sheriff is an official in a county who is responsible for keeping the peace and enforcing the law. Sheriffs are elected and are accountable directly to the constitution of their state, the United States Constitution, statutes, and the citizens of their county.

As the Sheriff of Kay County, my primary role as an officer of the court is to provide full services, that is, providing traditional law enforcement functions such as county-wide patrol and investigations.

As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of this county, the Sheriff serves and executes all process, writs, precepts and orders issued or made by lawful authorities, namely the courts all while providing security for judges and courthouses.

During the year of 2021 the Sheriff’s Office had a total of 450,221 patrol miles. 28,878 adult prisoner transport miles and 32,303 juvenile prisoner transport miles. We had; 6,551 deputy calls for service, 28,770 total calls through dispatch, 1,330 civil process papers served, 239 arrest warrants served, 1,424 warnings issued and 619 citations. The K-9 (Zeus) had several deployments and agency assist in 2021 which led to 18 arrests.

Zeus is only deployed when refused consent to search and with probable cause. Therefore, these 18 people would’ve gotten away without Zeus. Seizures include methamphetamine, illegal marijuana, drug paraphernalia and illegal possession of firearms during the deployments. Sgt. Stieber and his partner logged in 32 days of training in 2021, approximately 272 Hours. Deputy training hours consisted of 1,119 Total cleet certified hours, 36 mental health hours, which is about 60.8 average training hours per deputy in 2021. This far exceeds the 25 hours required by the state for each deputy.

The Sheriff and his staff are involved with several state and local organizations such as, NOC Advisory Board, Oklahoma Sheriffs Association (N.C. regional board member), N.W. Workforce for Excellence Advisory Board, Pioneer Tech Basic Law Enforcement Cleet Board, OSA Awards Committee, OSA Conference Committee, Southern Kansas/Northern Oklahoma Peace Officers Association (President) and the Drug Store Committee through the United Way just to name a few.

The Sheriff’s Office has been involved with teaching various courses provided by ALERRT (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training) and we have hosted Active Attack training to over 250 Law Enforcement and Fire/EMS personnel.

We will continue this training in the coming months and years. Within the Sheriff’s Office, we have 11 state certified trainers, firearms instructors, forensic interview specialists, two reserve CLEET coordinators, one meth lab recovery specialist and lam very proud to have 11 military veterans on staff. Since acquiring the rescue boat we have responded to seven different distress or assistance calls.

We will continue to assist the OHP Lake Patrol and Game Wardens in the event we get called to someone in need of help on the over 300 miles of shore line in the county. To serve and protect the citizens of this county is the most basic functions of any responsible government.

We must strive to provide the best service possible to keep our county safe. We are faced with the best and the worst of the community. The Sheriffs Office works very hard to develop good relationship with other departments, community organizations, our schools, our businesses, and our neighborhoods.

We will continue to strive to make this office as efficient as possible in the coming years. If you are interested in learning more about the Sheriff’s Office by participating in the Sheriff’s Citizen Academy or if you want an officer to come talk to a civic group you belong to, or if you are interested in a tour of our office contact me, Sheriff Steve Kelley at 580-362-3250.

I would also invite you to visit our Facebook page and the newly generated Kay County website where you can download applications for employment and the citizen’s academy. Thank you very much for allowing me to be your Sheriff.