Cleveland County Sheriff Chris Amason announces the creation of the Sheriff’s Community Response Unit (CRU).
The Sheriff’s CRU is a special team of highly trained deputies who use community oriented policing methods to solve problems in Cleveland County.
“I wanted a permanent team that I could send out to attack specific issues in Cleveland county without drawing from the resources in patrol or investigations.” Sheriff Amason said, “The Sheriff’s CRU will consist of five commissioned deputies, their main focus will be addressing community problems and disorders that affect the quality of life of our citizens throughout Cleveland County.”
This past Monday, Sheriff Amason was in attendance at the Board of County Commissioner’s meeting in which several Norman downtown business owners were speaking on the struggle they are having with the homeless population around Main Street and other areas of Downtown Norman. They said that they have addressed their issues with both the Norman City Council and the Norman Police Department with both being sympathetic to the issues, but unable to provide the necessary resources needed to combat the issue.
Sheriff Amason believes this is the perfect example of the type of work in which the Sheriff’s CRU will focus its efforts.
“This is why I created the Sheriff’s CRU. These deputies will use a wide range of resources to address these issues for the business owners and their customers while providing the homeless population with a variety of resource options. We want to help these individuals, giving them a hand up, but we will have zero tolerance for those involved in criminal activity.”
This unit will not be dealing solely with homeless issues, Amason says it is designed to handle a wide range of community issues that will require long term solutions. “I am looking for individuals that are devoted to compassionate service and community responsibility.” The Sheriff’s CRU will fill in other areas when necessary, but their main focus will be solving problems in the community identified through complaints from citizens, crime statistics and data driven trends, information received from other divisions within the sheriff’s office, or directives from the Sheriff.