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At Monday's Board of Osage County Commissioners meeting, Sheriff Eddie Virden gave a presentation to the Board. He showed them that some types of crime have decreased, while others have stayed steady and some have increased over the past few years.

Virden said they have been gaining ground on larceny and robberies, while calls for mental health problems and “high risk combined calls” such as suicide are on a steady incline. This is why the sheriff's office is looking to spend nearly $31,000 to purchase equipment to form a special operations unit. Kevin Young is responsible for heading that up and had this to say regarding what they needed.

The Board opted to approve that item. The equipment will equip 16 officers.

During his report, Virden added that dispatchers have taken just over 31,700 phone calls since the beginning of the year. That up from 26,000 calls during that same time span in 2019. There are currently 150 inmates in the jail.