Jamestown police calls dip slightly amid staffing shortages

Jamestown police stayed busy in 2025 even as the annual call total eased slightly from the year before, and Chief Scott Edinger said the real story was not falling demand but a department stretched by staffing turnover. Officers handled 14,485 calls for service last year, down from 14,637 in 2024 and 15,036 in 2023, a modest drop that came as the department worked with fewer people on the street.

That matters in Jamestown because every call passes through the Stutsman County Communications Center, which answers all 911 calls and dispatches service for more than a dozen area first-responder agencies. The police department itself runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on three 8-hour shifts, covering a city at the intersection of Interstate 94 and Highway 281 in a county of 21,593 people. With one opening still on the roster, Edinger said a short-handed department has less time for self-initiated patrol work, traffic enforcement and the kind of problem-solving that can catch trouble early.

The mix of calls also shifted in ways that show where police time is going. Trespassing calls rose to 93 in 2025, up from 48 in 2024 and 61 in 2023, a jump that points to more frequent nuisance and property-related enforcement. At the same time, sex offender registrations fell to 464 from 625 the year before, a decline tied to changes in offender status, lower risk levels and some people leaving town or moving into different reporting categories.

The staffing issue has pushed city leaders to act. Earlier this month, the Jamestown City Council approved new classifications and salary scales for the police and fire departments, with changes set to take effect July 1. For new officers without a North Dakota POST license, starting pay was set at $60,000, rising to $60,900 after licensure, $61,814 after field training and $64,904 after a one-year trial period. The city’s move followed ongoing concerns about police pay and retention that have surfaced repeatedly in local reporting.

Those pressures carry added weight in a department that has been tested by high-stakes calls, from the October 2021 response to a reported active shooter at Jamestown High School, when officers arrived in less than three minutes, to a report of gunshots in northeast Jamestown in November 2024, a 15-minute lockdown at Jamestown Middle School in April 2026 and a 2025 bomb threat at Walmart that was deemed not credible. Taken together, the 2025 call totals show a department still absorbing heavy demand while Jamestown weighs how to keep enough officers in uniform to meet it.