Police Chief: City of Tahlequah hosting Road Safety Day with first responders, emergency services

During a Feb. 3 chat session, Tahlequah Police Chief Nate King discussed the goals of an upcoming free and family-friendly event, plus updated the public on call numbers for January.

The city of Tahlequah is hosting a Road Safety Day at the Tahlequah Armory Municipal Center on Monday, Feb. 10, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

"We'll have emergency vehicles there; police cars; fire trucks; maybe an ambulance. To Touch a Truck will have booths set up inside the building with safety information for both children and adults. We'll be giving away bicycles, you can enter to draw for a bicycle and you'll get to meet local hero's if you want to," King said.

TPD, Tahlequah Fire Department, Emergency Services, Cherokee Nation Emergency Services, Northeastern Health Systems Emergency Services, and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol will be at the event. According to the event's Facebook post, attendees can complete a survey in collaboration with Kimley-Horn, the engineering firm gathering this data for the safety action plan. Once the plan is complete, the city can apply for grant funding, which will improve chances of securing resources to enhance the safety and connectivity of city streets.

"This is part of our Traffic Transportation Safety Action Plan process. A group of us from the city, headed by Paige Harjo our City Planner, met last month and we'll meet again this coming Monday [to develop] a Transportation Safety Action Plan for Tahlequah, identifying some things we need to do; sidewalks; crosswalks; traffic enforcement; new rules; maybe adjusting speed limits in different places," King said.

Additionally, King said the goal of the plan is eliminating serious crashes within the city limits of Tahlequah.

"You're going to see some of our traffic initiatives as a department this year, trying to help do that as well," he said.

The Tahlequah Police Department is hosting three trainings this month and King said two of those training will focus on mental health for police officers.

"We're also starting something within the police department that we've talked about for a long time, we finally pulled the trigger on and [we're] going to have our Inaugural Shield Luncheon for our staff here," King said. [We'll] get together once a month, talk about the stressors, fatigue, frustrations, sometimes they come with working in law enforcement."

The department's first "Traffic Tip Tuesday" video will drop on TPD's Facebook page at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4. Officers Brad Baker and Ohavyah Soto will cover the monthly Traffic Safety Initiative for the department. During a Jan. 21 chat session, King said the video would be dealing with yielding to emergency vehicles - or vehicles on the shoulder with hazards on.

In January, officers logged about 5,595 calls for service; 1,870 citizen contacts; 1,510 building checks; 60 thefts; and less than 20 burglaries. Officers conducted 14,136 traffic stops; made 120 arrests and have taken 162 reports. King said they worked 61 vehicle crashes and detectives closed 30 cases.