Captain Matt Pohl breaks down all the resources and the value they provide
By Barb Pert Templeton
When St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King was made aware of a chain of emails with several police chiefs and city managers discussing forming a Southern Police Authority for the lower part of the county minus his department it got his attention. There was also another email that had Algonac City Manager Artie Bryson seeking a bid for police services from Clay Township Police Department. (Algonac has had a contract for police services with the sheriff’s department since 2012.)
After appearing at a late April meeting of the Algonac City Council to inform officials about the emails, King said he couldn’t be at the city’s May 5 meeting due to his daughter’s out-of-state wedding, but he’d have several other officers appear to discuss what his department offers.
Undersheriff Jim Spadafore and Captain Matt Pohl appeared at a May 5 meeting to do a co-presentation on the financial and resources aspects of Algonac’s contract with them.
Spadafore spoke first and talked budget numbers. (See Part One of this story on this website.)
Only Pohl stated outright that they were there because of the recent email chain King revealed to the council.
“This presentation is obviously in response to Clay Township bidding our police contract that we have right now, but it also highlighted the number of resources the sheriff’s office has,” Pohl said. “Clay Township simply doesn’t have the ability to do all these things, we do. And we’re happy to do that and I’ve shown we’ve done that. “
Pohl began by sharing that road patrols plus any kind of police services is what he oversees for the department.
He said under their contract with the sheriff’s department Algonac has five dedicated deputies that work 24/7, seven days a week. The current contract, that expires in Sept. 2027, was for three years at a cost of about $2,884,218.
Pohl began by stating that the department responded to nearly 50,000 calls for service in the county last year and 6,700 were in the City of Algonac.
St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department Captain Matt Pohl.
“We’re the largest and busiest law enforcement agency in the county that means we have a lot of resource at our disposal which means you have a lot of resource at your disposal under this contract,” Pohl said.
Plenty of resources
An example of those resources is the Sheriff’s Detective Bureau overseen by a lieutenant with six detectives on the job. They handle specialties like fire/arson, child forensic interviewing and forensic phone analysis which is important because everybody uses their phones for everything now. Only two agencies in the county, including them, can download contents of phones and track phone usage to help out, Pohl said.
The sheriff’s department works on adult and child protective service calls, and each one gets assigned to a detective who sees it thru to completion. They did 22 of those last year, 27 the year before and 28 the year before that in Algonac.
Pohl then shared an example of how the detectives utilized cell phone data at the detective bureau for a missing persons case. A 76-year-old woman from Madison Heights was reported missing and the bureau pinged her cell phone in Clay Township and tracked her to the water. In the second week of November, they dropped a boat in the river and located the vehicle within hours and brought the case to a close.
The department’s drug task force is another resource the county has at its disposal. Detectives, and the drug task force, worked together on several breaking and entering’s that led to warrants and not only recovery of stolen items but drug arrests too.
The sheriff also has a special response team, also known as a SWAT Team, which includes 16 individuals, who are specially trained plus six more crisis or hostage negotiators.
“This presentation is obviously in response to Clay Township bidding our police contract that we have right now but it also highlighted the number of resources the sheriff’s office has.”
St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department Captain Matt Pohl.
“These guys are responsible not only are they road patrol deputies, but they are trained and responsible to respond to perform high risk police functions,” Pohl said.
He then referenced the recent April 12 swatting incident in Marine City, which is a prank call to illicit a large police response. Pohl said he was highlighting this incident because within 10 minutes of a call to them they had a hostage negotiator on the phone with a suspect. At the 45-minute mark they had 25 officers on the scene along with armored vehicles and a sniper contingent.
“A turnround time at 45 minutes to have it on scene and get this whole thing cleared it is remarkable,” Pohl said.
Councilwoman Wendy Meldrum asked Pohl in the case of those special teams on the scene for an incident how does the sheriff recover those costs, does the city get a bill?
“We’re not billing the city, there is no recovery of that cost, that’s just the price of business,” Pohl said. “We see our role as the sheriff’s office in the county to perform those functions for agencies that can’t do that and we understand that.”
The final resource the captain wanted to highlight was the accident investigation team. He said the sheriffs polices the most accidents and fatal accidents within the county. The sheriff’s department has one sergeant in charge of the team of five deputies, and he is highly trained and can serve as an expert witness if called upon following any fatal accident.
Algonac Mayor Rocky Gillis
“If nothing else has come out of all of this, we’ve got a better understanding of each other and we’re learning together, so we really appreciate you showing us everything because education is always the key.”
Other agencies often request the sheriff’s accident investigation team in their jurisdictions, and they provide road and vehicle inspections, drone aerial photography and speed analysis, which is packaged and given to the agency requesting it free of charge.
Being there at no additional cost
Pohl also noted that the sheriff’s department has had a contract with the city for 14 years now and has taken part in numerous events in that time, The list includes the annual Pickeral Tournament and just last year the sheriff’s department logged 200 hours for that long summer weekend in the city at no cost to taxpayers.
“We’ll be here this year as well and to put that into perspective we did over 200 manpower hours last year at the Pickeral Fest and that’s at no extra cost to anybody,” Pohl said.
Councilman Michael Bembas asked how much money that would have been. Pohl said he thought he recalls seeing a notation that it was $20,000.
“I think that our sheriff’s department does an excellent job I support them 110% and I always say if it’s not broke don’t fix it,” Bembas said. Meldrum took time during her council comments to thank the sheriff’s department for coming out and explaining how their budget works and exactly what they do. She said she’s new to the council table and it’s important that when new board members come on the sheriff should attend a meeting and explain things.
Mayor Rocky Gillis also took time during his comments to thank the sheriff’s department for doing a presentation at the meeting.
“If nothing else has come out of all of this, we’ve got a better understanding of each other and we’re learning together, so we really appreciate you showing us everything because education is always the key,” Gillis said.
