Lane J. Roberts

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  www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_194195511.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/13/2008    Last Visited: 7/13/2008  

  Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts, Carl Junction police Chief Delmar Haase, Carthage police Chief Greg Dagnan and Francis spent about an hour answering our questions about trends they are seeing in law enforcement and the challenges they face.
  ...
  Haase, Dagnan and Francis all spent a good part of their careers at the Joplin Police Department, so it was an interesting exchange between them and Roberts, who has led the department for a little more than a year.
  ...
  While it's hard to compare the problems Haase has with a department of 12 members with those of Roberts, who has a department of 97 officers, all of the chiefs lamented the ever-shrinking pool of officer candidates.
  
  Roberts and Dagnan have budgets that allow them to send new hires to the Missouri Southern State University police academy.
  ...
  Traffic is one of Joplin's biggest issues, according to Roberts, while the other three chiefs cited crimes against property.
  
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  www.joplinglobe.com/joplin_metro/local_story_226214501. - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/14/2008    Last Visited: 8/14/2008  

  "I think the three have sort of an equitable importance to them," Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said after the meeting.
  ...
  Roberts said high energy costs are having "unanticipated effects" on local law enforcement, particularly with jail overcrowding.
  
  "People who can't afford to get to work economically ... or people who can't afford to pay their fines and opt for jail time seem to be resulting in reduced revenues and increased jail populations," he said.
  ...
  "It's encouraging to me that he would take the time," Roberts said of Blunt.

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  www.joplinglobe.com/joplin_metro/local_story_226215036. - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/14/2008    Last Visited: 8/14/2008  

  Police Chief Lane Roberts said the state patrol informed him Wednesday that its investigation of the shooting of Milton E. Ganz, 38, outside his home at 2603 S. Monroe Ave. concluded that Officers Ben Cooper and Freddie Alaniz acted in accordance with Joplin Police Department policy governing use of force.
  ...
  Roberts said the patrol's report concurs with findings of the Police Department's own internal-affairs review.
  
  "(The officers) did the right thing," Roberts said."They were in a real tough spot."
  
  He said he has yet to see the patrol's report on its investigation and does not know the specifics of its findings.He said the patrol simply provided him a courtesy notice of the primary conclusion of its investigation.
  
  Roberts said the Police Department's own review concluded that nine shots were fired in the incident, all of them by Cooper and Alaniz.
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  "We know his gun was loaded, but we don't believe he fired a shot," Roberts said.
  
  One live round was found in the weapon.

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  www.joplinglobe.com/homepage/local_story_113123010.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/24/2007    Last Visited: 4/24/2007  

  R. Nomer// Joplin's new police chief, Lane Roberts, accepted his command during a ceremony Monday morning at City Hall. /
  
  Published April 23, 2007 12:30 pm - Lane Roberts was sworn in as Joplin's police chief today during a ceremony at City Hall.
  
  Monday, 11:33 a.m. New Joplin police chief sworn in
  
  Lane Roberts was sworn in as Joplin's police chief today during a ceremony at City Hall.
  
  After the ceremony, Roberts cited several issues that are important to him, such as adding officers, achieving department accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, and 911 concerns.
  
  However, until he spends at least a few days on the job, he said he could not say which issue would be the highest on his list of things to do.
  
  Roberts also said he plans to stay on the job for at least 10 years.
  
  Roberts replaces Kevin Lindsey, who left to take a job in Fort Smith, Ark., in January.
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  Roberts was most recently director of the Deschutes (County) 911 Service District in Bend, Ore.He previously was police chief with several departments in the states of Oregon and Washington.He spent seven years as chief at Redmond and four years as chief criminal deputy and undersheriff of Yakima County, Wash.He has worked in law enforcement since 1971.

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  www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_303214107.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 10/31/2007    Last Visited: 10/31/2007  

  Published October 30, 2007 09:41 pm - Police Chief Lane Roberts believes the Joplin Police Department's use-of-force numbers for the current year are in line with those of other law-enforcement agencies nationwide and are remaining consistent from quarter to quarter.
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  Police Chief Lane Roberts believes the Joplin Police Department's use-of-force numbers for the current year are in line with those of other law-enforcement agencies nationwide and are remaining consistent from quarter to quarter.
  
  The Police Department recently released summaries of its Internal Affairs and use-of-force reports for the first three quarters of 2007.Release of the summaries to the public and the media is a practice initiated this year by Roberts, who became chief in April.
  
  "What I'm seeing is, at this point, an agency with lots of opportunities to use force but shows great restraint," Roberts said in a recent interview.
  
  Joplin police officers employed some level of force 110 times this year through the end of September, according to the reports.There were 145 officer involvements in those uses of force, meaning that more than one officer had a hand in some of the 110 instances.
  
  Officers made 5,268 arrests over the nine-month reporting period, making the use-of-force rate about 2.75 percent in terms of officer involvements.
  
  Roberts said that rate is slightly lower than rates he saw while he was chief of the Redmond Police Department in Oregon.He said it is significantly lower than the use-of-force rates for the Yakima County Sheriff's Department in Washington, where he was undersheriff in the late 1990s.
  
  Roberts said he believes the equipping of law-enforcement agencies with Tasers in recent years has lowered use-of-force rates.
  
  "I think they've had a deterrent effect, and I'm certain they've had a reducing effect on the number of injuries sustained by arrestees," he said.
  
  Tasers were deployed by Joplin officers 28 times during the first three quarters of the year, or about once in every 188 arrests, according to the reports.That works out to a rate of about 0.5 percent, which Roberts said is an appropriate level of use.
  
  He said there is a general public misunderstanding of police use of Tasers.People tend to think of the Taser as a weapon that police use to punish and to inflict pain on someone they are arresting when it actually is a means of safeguarding a suspect, he said.
  
  "Its purpose is to reduce your ability to resist so we can arrest you without injuring you," Roberts said.
  
  The Taser allows officers to avoid use of more physical holds or takedowns that pose a higher risk of injury to suspects and officers, he said.While Tasers represent a temporarily unpleasant experience for suspects, they are not "painful" in the sense that a broken bone or torn muscle might be, he said.
  
  Tasers were the second most common type of force employed by Joplin officers over the reporting period, according to the department's figures.There were 42 instances of officers employing a take-to-ground approach, a control tactic that is more likely to result in injury than use of a Taser, Roberts said.
  
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  hightimes.com/news/ht_admin/4639 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 7/3/2008    Last Visited: 10/1/2008  

  For a different perspective on the issue, I decided to visit Joplin's police chief, Lane Roberts.Walking up the front steps and into the vaulted entrance of the police station clutching the latest edition of High Times - the one with the double kush on the cover - could be seen by others as one of two things: stupid, or an arrogant, last-minute plot to elicit contempt.
  
  What would they think of this man, obviously just out of bed and unkempt, strolling into ground zero of "law and order and justice for all" with his magazine advertising fake penises to pass drug screenings?
  
  I sit unnoticed until Roberts greets me in the waiting area.Once inside his office, he strikes me as a fair and balanced chief.He answers questions carefully, and right down the middle.
  
  He's been in law enforcement for nearly 38 years, with some of that time spent in the Pacific Northwest.I ask him about the failed effort to get decriminalization on the ballot.
  
  "I'm not offering my opinion on whether it is a good idea or it is a bad idea because I don't want people to have some preconceived notion about how I would respond to the law one way or another," he said.
  ...
  At the age of 19, Roberts smoked marijuana in the Philippines.He was in the military.
  
  "The fact is that I'm a product of the 50s and 60s when some of these things became more socially acceptable," he said.
  
  Roberts now says he regrets the experience, and there would be no "last dance with Mary Jane" if he could do it over again.
  
  "I would not do it again, nor would I advocate other people do it because it's still illegal."
  
  I ask Roberts if he and his force are destined to be the bad guys in this debate, at least in the eyes of decriminalization supporters.
  
  "I'm not in the business of judging people," he said.
  ...
  As Roberts speaks, I notice his eyes darting back to the mushroom page numerous times, probably in mild bewilderment.Surely this man did not expect to have a toll-free phone number to order illicit drugs on his desk this Friday morning.
  
  I give him credit.The guy strikes me as pretty open and intelligent.
  
  Concerning the Maddy brothers and their efforts in Joplin, Roberts said they're going about it the right way.
  
  "I have always been an advocate of people constructively trying to change the law as opposed to defy it," he said.

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  www.joplinglobe.com/joplin_metro/local_story_178160257. - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/27/2008    Last Visited: 6/27/2008  

  Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said he is taking a matter-of-fact position on the ruling.
  
  "When you're talking about a constitutional issue, whatever the Supreme Court decides, that's the law of the land and that's what I support," Roberts said.
  
  Read more >>

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  www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_162222158.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/11/2008    Last Visited: 6/11/2008  

  That's the supply side," Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said Tuesday.

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  www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_107224244.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/17/2008    Last Visited: 4/17/2008  

  Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts is an example of an appropriate out-of-town choice.

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  byoiltruck.blogxpress.net/2008/06/27/pseudoephedrine-pr - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 6/1/2008    Last Visited: 7/2/2008  

  Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said Tuesday.
  
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