Duby

The Baker City Police Department resumed 24-hour patrols on Monday, Sept. 23, but Chief Ty Duby said the situation is not “ideal.”

The current night shift consists of one patrol car with two officers, Duby said.

The department has two officers who graduated from the state police academy this summer and who are still in a training period during which they patrol with a veteran officer rather than by themselves, Duby said.

When the two new officers finish the training period later this fall, Duby said the department could potentially return to having two patrol cars, each with a single officer, on the night shift.

But that schedule would continue to require the department’s patrol sergeant, Rand Weaver, and detective sergeant, Wayne Chastain, to work patrol shifts, Duby said.

He would prefer to have Chastain and Weaver concentrate on their supervisory duties.

The same goes for the department’s narcotics detective, a position that is vacant now, Duby said.

Another officer is on long-term medical leave, he said.

Duby said the department, if it doesn’t lose any more officers in the interim, could potentially return to his preferred schedule — maintaining 24-hour patrols including two patrol cars during the night shift, and having the sergeants do their normal duties rather than covering patrol shifts — in early 2025 after two other newly hired officers have graduated from the police academy and finished their local training periods.

One of those officers will graduate Nov. 1, and the other will start at the academy on Oct. 7. The academy training typically takes about four and a half months, Duby said.

Staffing issues a long-term issue

The police department stopped patrolling between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. daily on Dec. 1, 2023. Duby said at the time that the reason wasn’t a shortage of money for his department, but rather vacancies that he couldn’t fill at the time.

Duby had hoped to resume 24-hour patrols in June 2024. But before that could happen, one officer left for a job with Oregon State Police, and another went on medical leave.

Duby said at the time that the department couldn’t resume 24-hour patrols without incurring significant overtime, one of the reasons he ended around-the-clock patrols in late 2023.

Duby said that with the two new officers still in training, he didn’t intend to return to 24-hour patrols in September.

But he said he’s aware that city residents want officers patrolling at all times, and that a Sept. 11 incident in which a resident fired two shots from a .22 caliber revolver at a man who entered her home around 4:30 a.m., had galvanized public concern.

Brandon Culbertson, 36, of Baker City, is accused of entering a home on 15th Street through a sliding door and approaching the couple who live there while they were sleeping.

Culbertson, who is charged with first-degree criminal trespassing, is scheduled to enter a plea in Baker County Circuit Court Oct. 1 at 1:15 p.m. He is still in the Baker County Jail.

Duby said the Baker City Police response to that incident was slower than it should have been.

During the 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. period when no officers are patroling, an officer is on call. On Sept. 11 Duby himself was that officer.

Police dispatchers can call the officer if there is a situation that might warrant immediate response, Duby said.

He said the initial report about the Culbertson case didn’t note that he had entered the home or that a gun was involved.

Duby said he was unable to reach other officers who potentially could have responded to the call.

With hindsight, he said, he would have driven to the home himself.

Ultimately, Duby said, police didn’t respond until after Culbertson had fled the property. An officer arrested him around 7 a.m. the same day.

Although that incident wasn’t the only reason for resuming 24-hour patrols, Duby said “it did push me to make the decision.”