It was an good year for the Bonney Lake Police Department in 2014 as the force set some record highs and lows while policing the Bonney Lake community.

Police Chief Dana Powers presented the department’s 2014 Year End Report to the City Council June 2, sharing with the members why the last year was so successful for the department.

“A lot of people work really hard for the citizens of our community, and outside the community as well,” Powers said in a later interview. “Working with other units such as the Crime Response Unit and the Metro Collision Response Team, those are successful programs that have taken that metro concept and utilizing it for everyone’s benefit.”

Auto Theft Task Force

The Auto Theft Task Force had one of its most successful years, Powers said.

The task force covers the South King County and North Pierce County area.

Last year, the task force recovered 190 vehicles. This is the most vehicles recovered by the task force since 2010, when the task force recovered 120 vehicles.

Additionally, the task force made a record number of arrests, 78, for vehicle thefts. The previous record number was 61 arrests in 2011.

Tahoma Narcotics Task Force

The Tahoma Narcotics Task Force covers all of Pierce County.

In 2014, the task force confiscated more than $2 million in currency and property.

The task force also seized 1657 pounds of marijuana, 25 pounds of heroin, 5.4 pounds of cocaine, 147 pounds of meth, and more than 2000 Schedule II pills and doses of ecstasy.

The task force arrested 89 people involved in the sale and distribution of narcotics.

Powers mentioned heroin was in 2014 as the drug-of-choice in the Pierce County area.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in heroin use,” Powers said, although that may change this year. “It’s an ebb and flow. Right now its heroin, and then when we really clamp down on that, it’ll be oxycontin again, or the bath salts.”

Bonney Lake Traffic Unit

For the second year in a row, Bonney Lake saw no fatal car crashes in 2014.

The number of vehicle crashes also went down slightly from 257 reported crashed in 2013 to 250 reported crashes in 2014.

However, the number of injuries reported from crashes decreased significantly, from 70 injuries in 2013 to 47 injuries in 2014.

DUI citations were also down from 65 in 2013 to 56 in 2014, a 14 percent decrease.

Overall crime

In general, the Bonney Lake area saw a 2.2 percent increase in crimes reported to the department from 2013.

“It’s not a huge increase. Do we want to see the increase in that area? No, we want to see a decrease,” Powers said. “When we see an increase, we look at where the increase was and look at where we need to put our resources, where we need to focus on.”

Notable increases in crime in 2014 include simple assault and burglary.

There were 79 reported simple assaults in 2013, which increased to 131 in 2014.

In 2013, there were 91 reported burglaries. This increased to 119 reported burglaries in 2014.

Significant decreases in reported crimes were seen in vandalism with 202 reports in 2013 and 170 reports in 2014.

Larceny, or theft, also decreased from 430 reports in 2013 to 387 reports in 2014.

While the department saw an overall increase in crime reporting and fluctuations in specific crimes being committed in the city, the department also experienced a 7 percent decrease in call volume.

“The call volume is our patrol call volume. That’s people calling us, and us responding to calls for service and calls for help,” Powers said. “That could be a false alarm, a domestic dispute that doesn’t rise to the level of arrest. That number fluctuates.”