The Sheriff’s Busy Month in Storey County

Storey County is not a large place, which is one of its more charming qualities. It is the sort of county where a man can drive for ten minutes without seeing another automobile, a house, or any evidence that civilization has made a serious commitment to the neighborhood. Nevertheless, the Storey County Sheriff’s Office managed to respond to 2,406 incidents in July, proving once again that trouble has excellent eyesight and can find a sheriff almost anywhere.

According to the Sheriff’s Office patrol statistics, deputies made 60 arrests during the month and issued 277 citations. This is a respectable amount of paperwork for a county where the scenery occasionally seems to be the principal resident, and where a person might reasonably expect the most dangerous activity on a Tuesday afternoon to involve somebody attempting to parallel-park a pickup truck.

Of those 2,406 incidents, 952 were calls for service. That means somebody, somewhere, actually called the sheriff and said, in effect, “Something is happening, and I would prefer that it happen to somebody else.” The deputies, being public servants and therefore unable to recognize the sacred boundary between other people’s problems and their own, went forth to investigate.

The deputies also generated 1,454 deputy-initiated incidents. This is an impressive figure, because it demonstrates that the sheriff’s office was not merely sitting around waiting for the telephone to ring. Apparently, the deputies were out looking for trouble, which is a dangerous occupation in Storey County because trouble, once discovered, has a remarkable tendency to require paperwork.

There were 767 traffic stops, suggesting that somewhere in Storey County there are motorists who have not yet learned the ancient Nevada tradition of discovering the brake pedal immediately upon seeing a patrol car. There were also 169 cases and reports, because every good law-enforcement story eventually reaches the same destination: a form, a signature, and another form explaining why the first form was necessary.

Taken together, the numbers reveal a remarkable truth about modern law enforcement. Even in a small county, there is no shortage of people who require assistance, automobiles that require stopping, laws that require enforcing, and citizens who are perfectly willing to explain to a deputy why the law, as presently written, ought not to apply to them.

Thus July passed in Storey County beneath the watchful eye of the sheriff’s office, with 2,406 incidents proving that "peace and quiet" are not necessarily the same thing. Peace, it appears, requires 60 arrests, 277 citations, 767 traffic stops, 952 calls for service, 169 reports, and 1,454 deputies deciding on their own that somebody ought to be having a less interesting day.

Civilization is a delicate arrangement. In Storey County, it's maintained one traffic stop, one arrest, one report, and one irritated citizen at a time.