Marion Police Department introduces online data hub

The Marion Police Department has released an online transparency hub called Resident Connect that allows people to see what types of calls police officers and firefighters respond to and the general area where the calls came from.

Dots are placed on an interactive online map in the area were the calls occur, although specific addresses are not listed. Users can click each dot to find out a few details about the call, including what kind of call it was, the time and the incident number.

The transparency hub comes a little less than a year after the department implemented a new records management system, which it purchased with the Hiawatha Police Department through Tyler Technologies.

“Our old system wasn’t sufficient for a department our size, lacked the analytical capabilities necessary to perform our jobs more efficiently and effectively, and did not allow the community the opportunity to see what goes on here in town, on a daily basis,” Marion Police Chief Mike Kitsmiller said.

Kitsmiller said the department waited to open Resident Connect until almost a year after the new records management system went live so that there would be sufficient data for the community to review. The old data kept by the department has not been migrated into the new system, but is archived so the department can search it in a separate database when needed.

Resident Connect updates automatically once per day and can be queried in multiple ways, including by date and by type of call. For example, the map shows that between Feb. 21, 2023 — when the new records system was first implemented — and Feb. 14, 2024, there were 385 car crashes in Marion, many concentrated around major roads like Highway 151.

In the same time period, there were 4,753 fire department incidents, 3,689 of which were medical incidents. There were 37 fires, four of which were considered large fires.

There have been 3,312 police incidents in Marion since the new system was implemented, and 531 cases. An incident in defined as anytime a Marion officer is assigned to a call, and a case is whenever there is a case report written by an officer.

The most common cases are thefts and larcenies, of which there have been 240. There were 81 theft/larceny cases near the intersection of Highway 151 and Highway 13, where there is a Casey’s, a Walmart and a few other businesses.

Kitsmiller said the goal of Resident Connect is to improve community policing practices and transparency by giving community members the opportunity to see what is going on near their homes and businesses.

“Prior to our new system, we lacked the crew and technology to try and implement anything like Resident Connect, so we are very happy with how it is performing and have gotten positive feedback from people who have used it,” Kitsmiller said.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com