Sheriff Lutz Offers End of Year Look at Department

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio-Sheriff Matt Lutz is very proud of the year that his sheriff department has had in 2020. 

Lutz says the year was very different for his department. The needs of the community changed from 2019 to signify the changes that 2020 brought. 

“Our calls to dispatch were actually down compared to 2019.  In 2019 we had just over 65,000 calls and in 2020 we had just over 58,000 calls. So we’re down on the calls and we’re also down on the incidents that we create, which is our calls for service. That covers calls to fire department squads and our law enforcement people.”, Lutz said of the calls his department received.

Lutz could not say for sure whether the change in calls and crime was due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A particular point of pride for the department was its drug combat programs. Lutz had the statistics on how clean he and his deputies kept the streets. 

“We seized over 20,000 grams of cocaine, over 2,700 grams of methamphetamine, over 288 grams of fentanyl, 162 grams of heroin, we took 432 pills off the street, and we also took in over 11,400 grams of marijuana. We also took 25 firearms off the street.”, Lutz said of the drug prevention efforts.

Lutz looks forward to making the community a brighter and safer place to live in 2021.