The Rifle Police Department released their annual report for 2024 recently with some great statistics for their officers and how the department has done over the years. 

Rifle PD has 22 sworn officers and six civilians working for them, recently adding K9 Apollo to their ranks. The Rifle PD works in conjunction with multiple other agencies and has recently added three officers to their Peer Support for people in first-responder jobs. 

The leadership of Rifle PD is important in determining the direction of the agency: Chief Debra Funston has been with the department since 2021, working in law enforcement for 37, partially spent all over the western front of Colorado before settling in Rifle. 

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Lt. Mike Kuper has been with the department since 2001 and founded the Garfield County All Hazards Response Team, which includes personnel from the Glenwood Springs Fire Department and Colorado River Fire Rescue, along with the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office. Kuper became the entry team leader and designated marksman from his hard work and skill. He was promoted to lieutenant in 2021. 

Kuper also runs the drone team, specializing in search and rescue missions where the live feed can cover more ground or showing crime scenes from different angles that might be hard to see from the earth. 

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The patrol division is described as the backbone of the department – they’re the people on the ground, investigating incidents, speaking to residents and responding to emergencies. They’re the ones you see most often and have the biggest chunk of the department with 15 officers. 

Some officers get more calls than others: School Resource Officer Josh Allison is assigned to Rifle High School, but also works with Rifle Middle School, Highland Elementary, Graham Mesa Elementary and Wamsley Elementary. 

Working with five schools means over 2,500 students and that means a high number of calls for service: 578 from schools for 2024. Allison is the designated school resource officer for the city of Rifle. 

Community Service Officers are another huge help in the Rifle Police Department, handling things like animal control and the well-being of pets, nuisance codes, abandoned vehicles and parking complaints. Community service officers Alan Lambert and Dawn Neely are the entirety of their department. 

There were a total of 118 investigation cases this past year, made up of sex offenses, deaths, robbery/menacing, child abuse, fraud and other types of investigations. Detectives Haley Crow, Jose Valdez and Sergeant Dewey Ryan are the detectives in the Rifle Police Department. 

Detectives respond to major crimes scenes and ensure the highest level of investigation is achieved and compile as much information as possible to present to the courts in case these cases go to trial. 

The Rifle Police Department also has SPEAR, the Special Problems Enforcement & Response Team which focuses on drug crimes and “crimes against persons” like homicide, kidnapping or suspicious deaths. This past year, SPEAR seized over $2.5 million in street value of various drugs. 

With all the investigations of crime comes a truckload of evidence that has to be sorted through: the Records & Evidence Department does that, with manager Shelby Beitzel, Yvonne Crow and Lyndsey Bogden. 

Beitzel was interviewed about the process earlier this month and shared how much the records and evidence ladies do for the department. If the patrol is the backbone, then the records and evidence is the foundation – Rifle PD couldn’t do what they do without having evidence to back it up. 

The report lists all the statistics for the Rifle PD, done by Angela Stow-Mills, the Public Information Officer for Rifle PD. She does the public outreach, event coordination and content creation for the department. 

Read Stow-Mills entire report on the Rifle Police Department at rifleco.org/1031/Annual-Reports and click on the 2024 annual report.