The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office saw case reports within its service area decline by nearly one-quarter between 2018 and 2019, the office disclosed this week in its 2019 annual review.

A spokesperson for the office said that the the decline was due to more incidents being resolved “without the need for a full case report to be written.”

There were in excess of 84,000 calls for service in the county and Centennial. The most common crime in the two jurisdictions was motor vehicle theft, at nearly 900 cases. (Centennial does not have its own police department.)

There were a total of 2,968 adult arrests and 189 arrests of juveniles. On one out of every three days, the bomb squad deployed to conduct sweeps and check suspicious devices. 

No increase occurred in use-of-force complaints: there were only two in 2019, the same number as in the prior year. In 2017, there were four. There was also a nearly 40% drop in the number of allegations that internal affairs deemed “sustained.”

The office, which is the oldest law enforcement agency in the state, covers nearly 900 square miles. In addition to the county and Centennial, the sheriff also provides assistance for the towns of Bennett, Deer Trail and Foxfield. Response times to calls were an average of four minutes in 2019 and the jail population on a given day was less than 1% higher than the 2018 average. Seventy-six assaults occurred by inmates against other inmates, and there were 24 inmate assaults on staff members.

This story has been updated with additional comments from the sheriff’s office.