Traffic stops, arrests down more than 13% in 2024: DeKalb County sheriff

SYCAMORE – DeKalb County Sheriff Andy Sullivan said short staffing impacted his office’s patrol division in 2024, reducing traffic stops and arrests overall.

According to the 2024 DeKalb County Sheriff’s annual report, traffic stops and arrests decreased by more than 13% from 2023 to 2024.

“Our patrol division really took a big hit last year,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said staffing issues caused his office to make fewer traffic stops and traffic-related arrests in 2024. The office is responsible for patrolling more than 630 square miles in DeKalb County, including assisting calls in other municipalities as needed.

“Last year our patrol division was significantly short staffed,” Sullivan said. “At one point we were down 10 deputies in the patrol division, so we didn’t have the personnel that normally would be able to dedicate more time to traffic enforcement.”

By the numbers

The sheriff’s office is divided into four main divisions: patrol, communications, investigations and corrections, which staff the DeKalb County Jail and security at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore.

Sullivan oversees the sheriff’s department staff and budget. For fiscal 2025, the office has a $7.7 million spending budget, not including its corrections and communications division, according to county documents. The corrections division has a $7.2 million budget for fiscal 2025, documents show.

In 2024, the patrol division staffed 20 deputies and four sergeants. The sheriff’s office also staffs one patrol deputy and sergeant for Kishwaukee College, and provides policing for the Village of Malta and DeKalb County Forest Preserve. The report lists the patrol division assignments as “under ideal circumstances,” but noted that’s not often the reality.

“However, due to retirement, turnover, and transfers, it is rare that the Division is at full staffing levels,” according to the report.

The communications division in 2024 had 16 telecommunicators, four sergeants and one lieutenant, according to the report. The investigations team in 2024 had one sergeant and five detectives.

In the corrections division, two deputies and one sergeant were assigned to the courthouse, with part-time staff assisting at security as needed. According to the report, the jail averaged 128 inmates per day in 2024, up slightly from 123 in 2023, 119 in 2022 and 102 in 2021.

In 2024, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office made 2,545 traffic arrests and 3,594 traffic stops, compared to 2,935 arrests and 4,162 stops in 2023.

At the same time, the number of civil process duties, such as issuing subpoenas, performed by sheriff’s deputies increased by 30% – the most since 2019.

While understaffed, the Sheriff’s Office responded to 14,117 calls for service, a 2% increase from 2023 and the highest since at least 2013, data shows. Deputies also responded to 633 crashes in 2024, according to the report. The most, 83, were in Sycamore.

Sullivan said there were a variety of reasons the patrol division was understaffed in 2024.

At least one reason was the death of DeKalb County Sheriff’s Deputy Christina Musil – a veteran and mother of three who served in Afghanistan. Musil was killed while on duty in DeKalb County after her parked vehicle was rear-ended by a commercial truck on March 28, 2024. The man accused in the fatal crash is expected to enter a plea in the case in a week.

Sullivan said he’s since filled eight of the 10 open spots on his patrol division, and hopes to prevent short staffing in the future.

“We have people that have been hired and are in training now to alleviate that in the future, hopefully,” Sullivan said.