Yavapai County sheriff talks flooding response, fentanyl, staffing in town halls

From fentanyl to calls requiring more deputies, Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes talked about current trends and concerns on a community level this week as he gathered with residents in Paulden and Prescott, the first two stops on his countywide tour.

The tour comes shortly after the agency released its 2022 statistics, which provides an overview of the past year's calls for service, arrests, drug interactions, solved cases and more throughout the county's more than 8,000 square miles.

In the coming months, Rhodes intends to continue the tour with multiple town halls in the Verde Valley.

Here are five key takeaways from this week's conversations:

Verde Valley residents concerned about serious weather and emergency response

As warmer weather continues to speed up the snowmelt, the cities and towns below the Mogollon Rim are directly in the path for potentially dangerous flooding.

After areas across the Verde Valley experienced an onslaught of flooding over the past couple weeks, residents in both towns were concerned about weather causing roadways to become impassible.

Rhodes assured the community that if first responders came across a blocked crossing while responding to a call for service, the Sheriff's Office is equipped with large armored SWAT vehicles that can travel through high volumes of water. And even if those vehicles can't make it across, the agency can always utilize its helicopter, he said.

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Fentanyl is a growing threat for northern Arizona

Like other border states, Arizona has seen an influx of fentanyl, a potentially deadly synthetic opioid, in the past few years.

"I've been in this business 30 years and I've never seen anything like fentanyl," Rhodes said.

The Sheriff's Office narcotics trafficking team seized nearly 1 million fentanyl pills, 157 pounds of meth and 25.2 pounds of cocaine in 2022, according to agency data.

The team also responded to 144 suspected overdoses and 43 fatal overdoses. It ultimately made 265 felony arrests last year and secured the state's first prosecution for an overdose death.

In response to the overwhelming prevalence of fentanyl throughout the county and the rest of the state, all deputies now carry Narcan with them, which can reverse an opioid overdose.

The need has become so great, Rhodes said, that doses of Narcan have been taped to the outside of the jail doors for easy access in case of an emergency.

The agency is also distributing the medicine to families of those being released from jail, who are then at a higher risk of overdose.

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Recruitment remains a challenge

Rhodes talked extensively about the agency's challenges recruiting more people, including both deputies and staff.

"A number was done on the psyche of people who were thinking of getting into this business," Rhodes said. "The unrelenting criticism that you saw for a period of time has really impacted the way that this profession is viewed."

"Some of the law enforcement criticism was definitely justified, without a doubt, but it gets blown up way beyond what it actually is," he said.

"We need to be telling people who are interested in this profession that it is a good, honorable, noble profession in which you can make a reasonable living and you can have fun in a lot of ways," Rhodes said.

In addition to low morale, the Sheriff's Office also must consider the particularly high cost of living in Yavapai County as an additional barrier to recruitment.

Even after raising pay by nearly 30%, Rhodes said, it's still not enough for most people to live and work comfortably in the community.

This was made clear last year, he said, when a couple who both worked for the Sheriff's Office had to move away after a just few months because they couldn't afford it.

The Sheriff's Office has a total of 480 budgeted positions across all departments and they still currently have around 90 vacancies, Rhodes said, which is down considerably from about 130 vacancies last year.

While the agency continues to actively recruit year-round, Rhodes has prioritized raising pay and benefits to ensure retention of the people that the department already has.

More calls that need more deputies for more time

While the overall volume of calls for service has largely remained steady over the past five years, Rhodes said that the types of calls the department is getting is changing.

This is likely due in part to policy changes within the agency as well as calls indicating a higher potential for violence from armed suspects.

Only two deputies would handle many calls in the past, including for domestic violence and mental illness, which required them to control and restrain subjects early on to ensure their safety.

Now, the agency deploys a more modern response that includes sending at least three or four deputies to these calls, which the agency says allows for deputies to contain subjects within a larger area and gives them time to slowly de-escalate potentially violent situations.

This is particularly important considering the Sheriff's Office reports receiving more calls with a higher risk of violence from armed suspects. These situations often require an immediate response from four or five deputies who are usually joined later by SWAT or the Quick Response Team.

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Speeding, traffic still upsetting residents

In many of the smaller communities throughout Yavapai County, including Paulden, speeding along the state highways that run through the centers of these rural towns remains a major concern.

Last year, residents in Congress demanded traffic control changes along their 2-mile stretch of State Route 89 after a pedestrian was struck and killed while crossing the street after leaving a restaurant along the town's main commercial strip.

Nearly six months after that incident, the Arizona Department of Transportation released the results of a safety study and included recommendations for highway improvements.

Further, Rhodes assured the community that the Sheriff's Office would try to increase speed enforcement in these areas.

According to the agency's 2022 statistics, patrol deputies conducted more than 7,700 traffic stops last year, including 163 for excessive speeding.

In addition to speeding, both residents and Rhodes lamented the sheer increase in traffic throughout the county in recent years, which contributes to congestion and an increase in crashes.

"I've been here my whole life in Yavapai County and it's never been like this as far as traffic on the roads," Rhodes said. "The infrastructure is not good enough anymore for the amount of people that are here."

Contact northern Arizona reporter Lacey Latch at LLatch@gannett.com or on social media @laceylatch. 

Coverage of northern Arizona on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is funded by the nonprofit Report for America and a grant from the Vitalyst Health Foundation in association with The Arizona Republic.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes' agency town halls: 5 takeaways