Laramie police log shows abandoned vehicle and theft reports

The June 24 police log put three very different calls on the same day: an abandoned motor vehicle in the 5200 block of Quarterhorse Drive at 9:52 a.m., a possible motor vehicle theft in the 2000 block of Binford Street at 1:04 p.m., and an incident at North 4th Street and East Gibbon Street at 4:49 p.m. The mix points to the kind of scattered, neighborhood-level work Laramie officers handle across the city, from vehicle complaints on the west side to a downtown intersection call later in the day.

The abandoned-vehicle entry matters because it can quickly turn into a code-enforcement or towing problem for property owners. Laramie’s Code Enforcement Division handles complaints involving abandoned, discarded or unused items, including junk and junked vehicles, on private property. City code requires owners or occupiers to remove those vehicles, and if the violation is not corrected the city can hire a contractor and charge the owner. Wyoming statute 31-13-104 also lays out a removal process for abandoned vehicles, including notice requirements, with a five-day notice in many cases when a vehicle is abandoned on public or private property and impounded by a police officer.

The possible theft call on Binford Street is the sort of report that can trigger an investigation and, when necessary, coordination with other agencies. The downtown incident at North 4th and East Gibbon Street is less specific in the log, but it still shows officers being pulled into a busy central area where traffic, disturbance calls and other public-safety issues can overlap in a matter of minutes. The log does not describe arrests or outcomes, which is part of its function: it records where officers were sent, not how every call ended.

The entries also show how much of the city’s public-safety system runs through recordkeeping as much as response. The Laramie Police Department says Chief Brian Browne leads 75 employees, including 47 sworn officers. Its records division says it collects, maintains and distributes police reports and related records, and requests should be specific about date, location, names and incident type. The Laramie / Albany County Records and Communications Center provides emergency 9-1-1 dispatching and consolidated records services for Albany County residents, tying the daily log to the broader public-records system that documents how city police spend part of their day.