Last updated on 2023-08-08
Sioux Falls Police Chief Jon Thum says the streets are getting meaner for his officers:
The Sioux Falls Police Chief says their department has seen an increase in assaults against their officers.
Thursday evening, officers responded to the area of 18th and Marion for shoplifting. While taking the suspect into custody the suspect bit two officers. During briefing today, Police Chief Jon Thum expressed his concerns about attacks on officers becoming more common.
“Our vehicles are getting rammed at a higher rate. Or sometimes it’s not an outright ramming just people not stopping and pushing their way through their cars. And that’s a dangerous event, too,” Thum said [Renee Ortiz, “‘We Don’t Desire This to Happen’; SFPD Reports Increase in Assaults,” KELO-TV, 2023.07.14].
Perhaps Chief Thum should invest in some PSAs: “Don’t bite cops—we do not taste like bacon.”
Perhaps Chief Thum may ease his blues by noting that Sioux Falls isn’t the most dangerous place to be a cop in South Dakota. As Ortiz notes, the 2021 Crime in South Dakota report says bad guys committed 370 assaults on cops statewide in 2021. (58 of those reported attacks on police were “intimidation”, indicating no officers were actually bit, hit, or perforated in 16% of the reported incidents.) Sioux Falls police incurred 59 of those assaults; Minnehaha Sheriff’s Office constables incurred another 13. Minnehaha County thus saw 0.36 assaults on police per 1,000 population, which is actually a little below the statewide rate of 0.40 assaults on police per 1,000 population.
| County | Population | Assaults on Police | AP/KPop |
| Aurora | 2,732 | 1 | 0.366 |
| Beadle | 19,182 | 2 | 0.104 |
| Bennett | 3,400 | 1 | 0.294 |
| Bon Homme | 7,011 | 0.000 | |
| Brookings | 34,710 | 2 | 0.058 |
| Brown | 38,090 | 43 | 1.129 |
| Brule | 5,254 | 1 | 0.190 |
| Buffalo | 1,912 | 0.000 | |
| Butte | 10,530 | 0.000 | |
| Campbell | 1,375 | 0.000 | |
| Charles Mix | 9,186 | 4 | 0.435 |
| Clark | 3,867 | 0.000 | |
| Clay | 15,155 | 3 | 0.198 |
| Codington | 28,467 | 10 | 0.351 |
| Corson | 3,843 | 1 | 0.260 |
| Custer | 8,635 | 0.000 | |
| Davison | 19,926 | 3 | 0.151 |
| Day | 5,435 | 1 | 0.184 |
| Deuel | 4,280 | 0.000 | |
| Dewey | 5,218 | 0.000 | |
| Douglas | 2,809 | 0.000 | |
| Edmunds | 4,028 | 0.000 | |
| Fall River | 7,189 | 3 | 0.417 |
| Faulk | 2,126 | 0.000 | |
| Grant | 7,532 | 0.000 | |
| Gregory | 3,952 | 1 | 0.253 |
| Haakon | 1,834 | 0.000 | |
| Hamlin | 6,263 | 0.000 | |
| Hand | 3,095 | 0.000 | |
| Hanson | 3,496 | 0.000 | |
| Harding | 1,320 | 0.000 | |
| Hughes | 17,768 | 1 | 0.056 |
| Hutchinson | 7,400 | 4 | 0.541 |
| Hyde | 1,215 | 0.000 | |
| Jackson | 2,846 | 0.000 | |
| Jerauld | 1,640 | 1 | 0.610 |
| Jones | 884 | 0.000 | |
| Kingsbury | 5,201 | 1 | 0.192 |
| Lake | 10,863 | 1 | 0.092 |
| Lawrence | 26,138 | 9 | 0.344 |
| Lincoln | 67,995 | 10 | 0.147 |
| Lyman | 3,753 | 0.000 | |
| McCook | 5,723 | 0.000 | |
| McPherson | 2,414 | 0.000 | |
| Marshall | 4,319 | 0.000 | |
| Meade | 30,270 | 17 | 0.562 |
| Mellette | 1,908 | 0.000 | |
| Miner | 2,329 | 0.000 | |
| Minnehaha | 199,925 | 72 | 0.360 |
| Moody | 6,314 | 4 | 0.634 |
| Oglala Lakota | 13,549 | 0.000 | |
| Pennington | 111,854 | 133 | 1.189 |
| Perkins | 2,823 | 0.000 | |
| Potter | 2,471 | 1 | 0.405 |
| Roberts | 10,178 | 7 | 0.688 |
| Sanborn | 2,383 | 0.000 | |
| Spink | 6,273 | 2 | 0.319 |
| Stanley | 3,017 | 2 | 0.663 |
| Sully | 1,471 | 0.000 | |
| Todd | 9,292 | 0.000 | |
| Tripp | 5,566 | 4 | 0.719 |
| Turner | 8,682 | 0.000 | |
| Union | 16,868 | 4 | 0.237 |
| Walworth | 5,246 | 2 | 0.381 |
| Yankton | 23,334 | 4 | 0.171 |
| Ziebach | 2,400 | 0.000 | |
| State | 896,164 | 355 | 0.396 |
Fourteen counties appear to have populations more inclined to beat up or threaten to beat up their cops than Minnehaha County; twelve counties exceed the statewide average for Blue-Life Battery.
Pennington and Brown counties really skew the statewide average. Assaults on cops in and around Rapid City and Aberdeen occur at 1.19 and 1.13 per 1,000 population, respectively. Tripp, Roberts, Stanley, Moody, Jerauld, Meade, Hutchinson, Charles Mix, Fall River, and Potter counties also post rates of assaults on police higher than the statewide rate.
Half of South Dakota’s counties reported zero assaults on police in 2021. The largest two counties not beating up their cops are Oglala Lakota and Butte; the rest of the counties on that honorable list each have populations under 10,000. Those 33 cop-safe counties include just 16% of South Dakota’s population.
But by the 2021 numbers, if you’re a Sioux Falls cop who’s tired of getting chewed out or chewed on, you might consider moving to Pine Ridge or Belle Fourche.
One more stat: Across South Dakota in 2021, police made 38,160 arrests. Police were assaulted 370 times. Just under 1% of arrests appear to have been accompanied by violence toward the arrestors.
My son is a cop in South Dakota and it’s something his mother and I are always worried about. A criminal tried to run him over one and I’m guessing there are times he has been threatened that he hasn’t told us about.
Cios have guns, tasers, batons, pepper spray and raidios so help is only a simple code blue call aay. Why are cops so afraid of the public? Why do they insist on handcuffing innocent people and never the store owners? I see videos on You Tube all the time where cops show up, get the business guy’s side of the story and then go full blitz on the alleged perpetrator. Cops violate people’s rights all the time and get qualified immunity from prosecution except in some enlightened jurisdictions.
First word should have been Cops. I blame drumpf and his lone stalwart defender here, who shall remain nameless used car salesman.
Interested in the numbers of Clay and Brookings County where the two largest Universities are located. Clay County population number (15,000) must not include college students. Incidence there is very low as it is in Brookings County. College students may misbehave and have police contacts, but the relationship on both sides is quite cordial and non threatening, and the miscreants tend to mellow out after a warning. Low incidence may be an indicator of good policing.
Arlo that Clay County number does include the college students. Clay county is a small in geographical size county, with ONE town in it – Vermillion – of more to 90 people.
Assaults on police officers are often associated with domestic violence interventions. A victim will call for a police officer, then attack him for arresting the perpetrator.
Obviously this is the result of Roe v. Wade having been overturned, don’t you know. From here on, everything that goes wrong will be the result of that: assaults on first responders, teachers, flight attendants, all can be blamed on women not being allowed to kill their children.
Its the end of civilization.
@ Algebra – Are you OK?
Algebra – let me guess, you got one of them Thin Blue Line “Domestic Abuse Pride” flags, dontcha?