Shelton Police calls increased last year

Compared with 2021, the number of reported burglaries and vehicle thefts in Shelton were up last year, vandalism and intimidation were down, and unlawful imprisonments remained the same at five both years.

Those are among the statistics presented to the Shelton City Council on Oct. 17 by Captain Chris Kostad, who on Nov. 1 will replace the retiring Carole Beason as Shelton's police chief.

The department's annual report found that in 2022, the department responded to 12,070 calls and 246 911 calls, an average of 33 per day. That's an increase from the 11,064 calls in 2021.

Kostad also presented the department's mission statement: "Our mission is to provide excellent service and protection through leadership and partnership with the community. Protecting the community is the core of what we do, but we also provide a variety of traditional and nontraditional services. We will accomplish our mission by being leaders in the community on working hand-in-hand with the public to make Shelton a great place to live."

The Shelton Police Department has 17 commissioned officers, including five sergeants.

When it comes to traffic enforcement in 2022, officers issued 125 criminal traffic citations, 113 traffic infractions and 50 DUIs. They responded to 286 reportable traffic accidents, which included 85 that involved hit-and-run and 21 with DUIs. Three of the accidents led to fatalities, one medically related and two involving drugs or alcohol.

In a comparison from 2021 to 2022, murders increased from one to two, manslaughters from zero to one, rapes from 13 to 14, and simple assaults from 117 to 133.

Incidents of vandalism decreased from 137 to 100, aggravated assaults from 38 to 35, intimidation from eight to one, and embezzlement and bribery incidents from 25 to zero. No reports of animal cruelty were reported in Shelton in 2021 or 2022.