Say More in Raymore

Raymore Police Department: One on One with Chief Jim Wilson

• City of Raymore, Missouri Government • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Raymore Police Chief Jim Wilson shares information about the Raymore Police Department, ways our residents can avoid being victims of crime and details on the upcoming Public Safety Sales Tax question on the April 8 ballot.

Learn more about Raymore Police at www.raymore.com/police

Learn more about the City of Raymore's Communications Department at www.raymore.com/communications

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Threads @CityofRaymoreMO

Melissa Harmer:

Welcome to Say More in Raymore, the City of Raymore's official podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Harmer, the Communications Director at the City of Raymore. In this series we're giving you an insider's look at the things happening in your city government, whether it's new developments shaping the community, upcoming events or the latest news that impacts everyday life in Raymore. We'll also introduce you to the people who work behind the scenes, our dedicated City staff who make it all happen. So stay tuned, because we're here to help you get to know the people, the projects and the programs that make Raymore a great place to live, work and visit, one episode at a time. In this episode we'll take a closer look at the Raymore Police Department with Police Chief Jim Wilson. But first here are a few upcoming dates to keep in mind. Tuesday, april 8th is the general municipal election. Polls are open from 6 am to 7 pm. Raymore voters will vote on city council members and a public safety sales tax in the amount of one quarter of one percent.

Melissa Harmer:

Saturday, April 19th is the annual Raymore Easter Festival at Recreation Park, and that starts at 10 am. If you're planning to attend with your children, don't be late, because the egg hunt starts right at 10 am and 15,000 eggs go really fast. If you are an artist or know one, the Raymore Arts Commission is now accepting entries for its second annual Power of Perspectives art competition. Entries are accepted through April 14th and the awards reception is open to everyone on Friday, April 25th at Centerview, our event space at 227 Municipal Circle. The doors will open at 6 pm and, in addition to viewing an exhibit of all of the art, we'll have live entertainment, complimentary refreshments, a cash bar and, of course, the awards. Cash prizes will be awarded in the categories of painting, photography, drawing and a sculpture/ multimedia/ other category. Learn more about the competition and the awards reception at Raymore. com/ pop, Raymore. com/pop. Now let's get to our guest, Raymore Police Chief Jim Wilson, who has been with the department for 32 years. Welcome, Chief.

Chief Wilson:

Thank you for having me. Good afternoon.

Melissa Harmer:

So tell me a little bit about your history with the Raymore Police Department and how things have changed since you've been here.

Chief Wilson:

So I started in Raymore in 1993. It is now 2025, so obviously there's been some huge changes within the community. When I started it was about 7,500, and now we're over 25,000. During my time working for Raymore, I have been in several positions throughout my career in assignments from detective, patrol officer, captain, deputy chief, chief, now chief.

Melissa Harmer:

When you first started with the city, you weren't a patrol officer. Tell me about what your first gig was here.

Chief Wilson:

So my first assignment here, I was loaned out to the highway patrol and I worked on a drug task force. And even when I came back from the drug task force after about three years task force and even when I came back from the drug task force after about three years, four years, I represented the city of Raymore as well as all the cities in nine counties on the task force board

Melissa Harmer:

And you had long flowing hair

Chief Wilson:

I had long hair at that time.

Chief Wilson:

Yes, anybody, most of the community that know me know that I don't have hair now unfortunately, so

Melissa Harmer:

Must have been a sight to behold.

Chief Wilson:

Yes, you know, I remember those days very fondly.

Melissa Harmer:

Of course.

Melissa Harmer:

Tell me a little bit about the organization of the police department.

Chief Wilson:

So currently today, we have two divisions. We have the support division and we have the operations division. Under the support division, we have the operations division. Under the support division, we have the communications unit. We have records and crime analysts as a unit of one. We have property and evidence, which is a unit of one as well, and we have animal control, which we have two animal control officers. The operations side currently has patrol and investigations. We have right now, I am allowed, 32 full-time employees, post-certified employees, which are officers. So with 32 full-time police officers, certified police officers. In order to be a certified police officer, you go to an academy, you get post certified and then you have to maintain your certification through additional training every year, and that training is broken down and mandated by the Missouri Post.

Melissa Harmer:

Talk about some of the training that you do that. I know that CIT training wasn't initially required or taught at the academy, but we did it here, so tell me a little bit about that.

Chief Wilson:

Well, CIT back probably 2008, 2009, under the position of captain, I started sending all the officers to CIT training to deal with critical incidents with folks that are having types of mental health or somebody in crisis, and it takes special training to learn how to de-escalate those type of situations with folks and we pretty much have every officer certified in that, regardless if they're an expert in that particular area. It's still good to go to those types of trainings to learn how to de-escalate folks that are in crisis.

Melissa Harmer:

And, in case anybody doesn't know, CIT means Crisis Intervention Team, and those types of calls do seem to be more prominent now than they used to be. And talk about our investigations unit.

Chief Wilson:

Our investigations unit. We have one detective sergeant and we have two investigators. I have my community outreach officer, who's also my SRO in that room. However, she is assigned to the patrol operations captain. The investigators are assigned to the detective sergeant. I have all new uh folks in that unit and including the detective sergeant, so everybody's under close training, um, and we're moving right along. They're learning by trial, by fire. They have plenty of cases and their caseload and they carry anywhere between 75 and 100 cases that's a lot at one time and just quickly.

Melissa Harmer:

SRO is school resource officer so that officer that's okay. She uh goes around to the different elementary schools within Raymore city limits.

Chief Wilson:

Yep, she, uh, she goes to to the different elementary schools within Raymore City Limits. Yep, she goes to all the schools within the Ray- Pec School District if needed, but her primary focus are all the schools within Raymore City Limits.

Melissa Harmer:

Great, so have we covered every area of the department yet?

Chief Wilson:

No, I don't believe we have.

Melissa Harmer:

Okay, let's keep going.

Chief Wilson:

Okay, so we have patrol next under the operation side patrol.

Melissa Harmer:

And I know we have four sergeants who supervise 20 patrol officers. How do those shifts work?

Chief Wilson:

So our patrol division is made up of one sergeant and we try to have four patrolmen on a shift. We're not quite there. Some shifts have three and as we have that many when one takes off, that leaves a little bit of a void there we do have. So we have two rotations. Within those rotations are the shifts that I just mentioned. So we'll have a day shift and a night shift, and then we also have a split shift, which basically is a two-to-two car. The two-to-two car comes on duty and helps handle the peak times for schools getting out at three in the afternoon. We have folks coming home from work and then they're finding things that are amiss or they need to report something, and then we have a little bit of the overnight hours as well.

Melissa Harmer:

Okay, so we're covering it all 24-7, 365.

Chief Wilson:

Yep.

Melissa Harmer:

Anything else with our breakdown of our police department that you want to share.

Chief Wilson:

You know the community outreach. We have a specific person that has that title. She's very busy with the schools. So every officer, every commander, we are all community outreach officers. We're all participating and helping. You know, right now we have the Citizens Academy. It just started last Wednesday night. This Wednesday will be night two of the Citizens Academy and you know we are pretty fortunate. We have 19 citizens in that academy but they're all learning what we do and how we do it. My SRO is running that program outside of her daily activities with the schools.

Melissa Harmer:

All right, so tell me about some other ways that you have a proactive approach to community outreach and other programs that are offered by the police department.

Chief Wilson:

So the community partnership is one of the most important partnerships within police work. I mean we have partnerships with other law enforcement agencies, other prosecutors, all the Fed folks, but really our biggest partner is our community. When we're not out there, it's their eyes and ears that are telling us what's going on and we couldn't do our job without them. They're like the unspoken hero for the pd. When they see something, they say something, they call us. So, with that being said, you know we have the neighborhood watch programs that we'll go out and assist with.

Chief Wilson:

We have the, actually the citizen academy that I just mentioned. We will have traffic radar sign placements based upon whatever the community feels the needs may be. Like, if there's a neighborhood that feels that they're having higher speed in their neighborhoods, that they can call us and we'll go put out a sign or put out the radar trailer to help put know, put out a visual aid to show the folks look, slow down in this area and determine also if the complaint is valid. Then we also do shop with a cop the drug take back. We have one coming up at the end of the month of April April 26th, Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm at Raymore PD and Price Chopper.

Melissa Harmer:

So that's unwanted, expired, unused prescription medications. Get them out of your cabinets.

Chief Wilson:

Get them out of the cabinet or wherever they are the tubs I think a lot of people use tubs these days, no such thing as the cabinets but bring them up and either drop them off at the PD or take them over to Price Chopper Vestibule to the officer that will be sitting in the vestibule taking the prescription drugs as well.

Melissa Harmer:

And that's just for safe disposal, because it's not really safe to throw them in the trash. It's not safe to flush them a lot of times just because of what's in the medications and then keeping them in your house can potentially lead to the wrong person accidentally getting some of them or abuse. So it's just a really good idea to safely dispose of them.

Chief Wilson:

I would agree.

Melissa Harmer:

What are some ways that our residents can keep themselves safe and avoid what I've heard you refer to as crimes of opportunity?

Chief Wilson:

Well, you know, basically we're going to harden the target, meaning, you know, with folks that are they're going to go to communities where they feel like they can go and commit the crime. Crime of opportunity. Meaning if you leave valuables in your car, if you leave your garage door open, if you you leave your house unlocked, folks may come by at the wrong time and break into your car, especially if it's unlocked. They don't have to break in, they just open the door. We will get reports where folks say, well, I'm sure I locked the door. Well, there's no broken glass and there's not keys.

Chief Wilson:

These folks don't have keys to the doors, so sometimes folks forget to lock them and they keep a lot of valuables in their cars, whether it be computers or money. What have you? You know, I think, that we put out that information three and four times a year, maybe even more than that. When I come to you and say, hey, can you put out? You know that that's a seems to be a big problem. Now, if you leave your garage door open, don't count on us coming by. But we often will catch that when we're in the neighborhoods and come and knock on your door at 1: 30 or 2 o'clock in the morning say, hey, your garage door is open, you might want to close that

Melissa Harmer:

And I don't think I've heard of anyone being upset that you've let them know that in the middle of the night.

Chief Wilson:

No, they're usually pretty happy. They are pretty happy about that.

Melissa Harmer:

So remember the 9 pm routine is what we talk about a lot in the summer, especially with now the weather getting nicer and you're out doing yard work and whatever. So just try to remember to check, keep your garage door, make sure your garage doors are closed by nine yeah, by nine.

Chief Wilson:

If not nine, you know, by 9:05

Melissa Harmer:

Sure.

Chief Wilson:

And then a couple other other key things.

Chief Wilson:

You know, if you're going to leave for an extended period of time, make sure you shut your windows. The spring's coming up, so people have a tendency to leave their windows open. It's mainly around the holiday times, however, if you drive around the city and you see people that put out you know, the 95-inch TV box or something of that nature, something that tells somebody you have something nice in your residence you might want to cut up that box, at least make it to where no one can tell what it was.

Melissa Harmer:

That's good advice. Talk to me now about your goals for the police department and kind of typical day in the life of a police officer.

Chief Wilson:

So, with regard to the typical life, and you know our goals for the police department, our goals are simply this: you know we take a lot of pride on being very proactive in our community, from me all the way down to the officer that we just hired last week. You know that's a culture that we just have here in Raymore and I think that, that being said, I think that the most important part is hearing the feedback that's coming from the citizens. There was a citizen survey that indicated that. You know, first let me say this during the previous years we were pretty high in the citizen survey 90-some percent. This last one, we fell back a little bit.

Melissa Harmer:

That's the overall satisfaction rate.

Chief Wilson:

That's the overall satisfaction rate. We pay attention to those things and in this last one it was something to do with make sure being seen in the neighborhoods and being seen in the business district. We're there. We're just not there, apparently, when the citizens see us or don't see us, but we're in those areas all the time. However, you know we only have so many per shift and in those shifts the officers are going to be going to the neighborhoods based upon calls for service. If there's calls for service, that's going to be going to the neighborhoods based upon calls for service. If there's calls for service, that's going to take them away from their normal patrolling.

Melissa Harmer:

Right. So an increased visibility in these areas are one of the goals of the police department, and we do that with increased staffing.

Chief Wilson:

We do that with increased staffing. I mean being visual, being seen, is a deterrent for crime. If, if folks that are coming here, thinking that they're going to do a crime of opportunity, drive around, look for early or easy victims, then we will be. If they see us out there patrolling, that's, that's a, that's a deterrent as well, both day and night.

Melissa Harmer:

Right, right. I wouldn't want to do something bad when there's a police officer right there.

Chief Wilson:

Right. And with that being said, I would like to talk a little bit about Grandview, our neighboring partners, meaning Belton, Grandview. You know, Raymore butts up against Kansas City, Lee's Summit, Grandview, Belton. We have a couple- we have some shops that that folks come into town to shop at and it, you know, when they're here shopping they may drive around. Some of those folks that come into town may not be, may be looking for an easy target down the road, who knows? But you know, Raymore, we have a population of about 25, 6 or a little bit more than that. Now Belton has 26,000 and something. It's almost 27. And then Grandview has a little bit less than 25,000.

Chief Wilson:

Well, Grandview has just patrol officers. Grandview has 70-plus. I misspoke, it's not patrol officers, it's certified peace officers. So that's 70-plus. Belton has 50-plus certified police officers. Right now we're sitting at about 32. And you know, we have 17 square, 17 point something square miles, and then they both have 14 point, you know, I think one of them is 7, and then the other one is like .5. But they have 14 square miles and we have 17 square miles.

Melissa Harmer:

So we have more area to cover.

Chief Wilson:

More area to cover. Area to cover, fewer police officers per resident per resident and the national average is, you know, 2.2 per thousand

Melissa Harmer:

Per thousand uh, I think it's closer to two and a half per thousand actually, but we're at about 1.3.

Chief Wilson:

We're at 1.3 and so with this upcoming public safety tax, that's for eight officers. That's to train, equip, which means everything from sending them to the police academy, future trainings. For that, the only those eight. It won't go towards any existing personnel and it's a quarter of one percent and those funds are strictly for eight additional officers right and this is on the April 8th ballot public safety sales tax.

Melissa Harmer:

It would create a public safety sales tax fund, and so that is the only thing that those funds would be used for hiring, paying, equipping and training additional police officers those eight additional officers and yes, our estimates anticipate that we can fund eight

Chief Wilson:

and then so with eight, if you, if it is eight, then we're still not near the national average

Melissa Harmer:

well, if you kind of break it down to those rotations, that's about two extra officers per per rotation per rotation or per officers per rotation.

Melissa Harmer:

Per rotation or per shift per rotation.

Chief Wilson:

Well, it would be shift, so minus, you know a couple other movements here and there with any of the community outreach position, but anyway it would still give us time. When folks look at you know the blotter every week. Hopefully folks out there are looking at the blotter. If not, you can have that emailed to you.

Melissa Harmer:

You can go to Raymore. com/ police and sign up for blotter, or go to our website search bar on top, hit police blotter and it'll show you the latest. Actually, you can see all of our blotters for several years and they come out every Monday.

Chief Wilson:

That's a good gauge of you know, with crime and incidents it has its peaks and valleys. So you know, this week folks may be, you know, at the top of the peak with some thefts or reports in a certain area, and then the next week that may be, you know down and it's just good information to know what's going on in the community.

Melissa Harmer:

And also, you know, Raymore is one of the few cities around us that does not already have a dedicated public safety sales tax fund.

Chief Wilson:

Correct.

Melissa Harmer:

And then, you know, if we add this one quarter of one percent, our city sales tax rates are still lower than Belton's. And yet we can have eight more officers, you know, increasing their presence in residential and commercial areas.

Chief Wilson:

So one of the things I think it happens is you know when we're out taking reports and you know it takes an officer out of service to finish that call for service, whether it be whatever kind of report, is they got to go back and complete that report? You know it's, it's not like something that's just done at that moment and you know so when they're out of service that takes an officer from from patrolling the streets or being seen. You know, with the additional folks that just gives us more of an opportunity to continue patrolling and being seen and being out in the, the business districts and the neighborhoods and still rotate folks in to do their paperwork, make those reports that are really needed.

Melissa Harmer:

Sure, and so the whole goal is the safety of the community. Right, that's the top priority, that's.

Chief Wilson:

You know we want to be able to be proactive and not reactive. Once we become reactive, it'll be just like what we see on TV with some of those bigger agencies where you know they're always blacked out. We become reactive. It'll be just like what we see on TV with some of those bigger agencies where you know they're always blacked out. You know it takes too long to respond to an incident in my mind.

Melissa Harmer:

Tell me what, just if anyone doesn't know, tell me what being blacked out means.

Chief Wilson:

Blacked out means that you know all their officers are busy on calls and they'll get to you when they can. Don't ever want to get to that, that position you know. Fortunately, we do have good relationships with our neighboring agencies, whether it be Belton or Cass County, and you know, need be they can come in and and help, or, you know, oftentimes we go and help them as well. So, but we want to be able to do it on our own and we want to be able to be proactive about it and, quite frankly, the name of the game is always displacing folks that want to come in and cause harm to our community and make our community members victims. So we're going to displace those folks and get them outside of the city, we're going to push them to another jurisdiction or we're going to catch them in the act. And in order to do that we need to stay proactive.

Melissa Harmer:

Thank you. And what is this really going to add to the price of what you're purchasing at a Raymore store? It's going to add one cent if you're buying a $4 cup of coffee. If you can get a $4 cup of coffee anymore, it's going to add one cent. It's going to add 25 cents if you're spending a hundred dollars at a Raymore store. So it's it. It's not a huge amount, but it again, it could put eight additional police officers into the Raymore police department to be able to serve us.

Chief Wilson:

Well, you know, I mentioned something earlier when we were talking and I, you know, I firmly believe that our community stores. They bring in folks from outside of our community. You know those folks are going to be paying for sales tax as well, you know, and with other folks coming into our community, it's like they're going to help support, you know, if this was to pass, they would help support our police department.

Melissa Harmer:

Sure, yep, anybody who shops at any Raymore store is going to be paying that and, you know. If anyone thinks that Raymore PD doesn't have a lot going on, that's not true, we know that, we know it. Like you said, peaks and valleys really busy times, times that aren't crazy. But if anyone has any doubt, I will say that I went on a police ride along a few years ago. I had been here working for several I'd interact with you a lot, some of the police officers, but I really didn't know what you guys did on a day-to-day basis. The ride-along really opened my eyes to everything that our officers do. I had no clue, and we even responded to an accident at a major intersection which required many Raymore police officers to direct traffic. And it's just- if you have any doubts about what our police officers do on a day-to-day basis or you have no idea, I would suggest going on a ride-along and you can request to do that on our website.

Chief Wilson:

Absolutely, you can request that or even come into the PD lobby and get a form. The form can be filled out and left, and then my community outreach officer or my operations commander will reach out to you and schedule the ride-along. It could be the whole four hours, it could be two hours, it could be three hours. Please come in and ride along. You'll get to see what we do.

Melissa Harmer:

And that's just another one of those community outreach programs that we have so people can help understand what the police do for the community every day.

Chief Wilson:

That's right, absolutely.

Melissa Harmer:

Great. Well, if someone wants to get in touch with you, tell them how.

Chief Wilson:

Well, if they want to get in touch with me, they can obviously call my office 816-892-3036, or they can hit my email at jwilson

Melissa Harmer:

And then we have a lot information, facts and figures on the Public Safety Salex Tax at raymore. com/ public safety. If you want to learn more about what the police do, those house watch programs and all of those other things, raymore. com/ police. Anything else you want to leave us with?

Chief Wilson:

No, no, thanks for having me, and you know, the last time we did this, you said I talked too long, so I'll just stop now.

Melissa Harmer:

Well, I do appreciate your time because I know you're a busy guy, so thank you so much, Chief.

Chief Wilson:

Thank you.