Photo by Deb Gau Lyon County Sheriff Eric Wallen delivers to commissioners the annual report on the activity of the Sheriff’s Office, the jail and dispatch.

MARSHALL — The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office responded to over 2,000 more incidents last year than it did in 2023.

Sheriff Eric Wallen said part of the reason for the increase was a sharp jump in the number of traffic stops the Sheriff’s Office conducted. Traffic stops by Lyon County deputies more than doubled in 2024.

“We wanted to make a better effort in traffic safety in the county. It’s one of the things that I looked at and said, I think we can do a better job with this,” Wallen said.

The increased number of traffic stops resulted in both warnings and citations, he said.

Wallen shared data from the Sheriff’s Office, the Lyon County Jail and the dispatch office as part of an annual report to county commissioners on Tuesday.

“I had wanted to try and bring before the board a little more awareness of what goes on in the Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office received a total of 8,134 calls for service in 2024, compared to 5,679 calls in 2023.

“Our calls for service are significantly higher,” Wallen said. “And that is for the Sheriff’s Office only. That doesn’t factor in what the Marshall Police Department did, or Minneota or Tracy PD did.”

One of the big changes between 2023 and 2024 was an increase in the number of traffic stops done by deputies. In 2023, there were a total of 1,655 traffic stops, while in 2024 there were 3,942 traffic stops.

“We’ve been making an effort to be more proactive in traffic enforcement and education, so that’s why we’re seeing a bigger increase in that category,” he said. “That was probably one of the main reasons for the increase in calls for service on the year.”

Wallen said he hadn’t gotten concerns or complaints from the public about the emphasis on traffic stops. In one case, a man actually called to thank the officer who pulled him over.

“I think he had an issue with the taillights or headlights on his car — he thought they were on when they weren’t. And so he got pulled over, and the officer helped him, because not all cars have the automatic lights,” Wallen said.

The increased number of traffic stops were also part of the reason there were more people arrested for driving without a license or DUI in 2024, Wallen said. Most of the traffic stops involved speeding, he said.

Wallen said the Sheriff’s Office met its contracted hours for law enforcement patrols in the cities of Balaton, Cottonwood, Ghent, Lynd and Russell in 2024.

“It does get to be tough at times, depending on staffing,” he said. “Still, we’ve got to try our best to meet those contracts, and we’ve been successful thus far.”

The Lyon County 911 dispatch center also received a total of 5,893 emergency calls in 2024.

“They take calls for all the police departments and all the emergency responders in the county,” Wallen said. “So this includes calls for service for every entity.”

The average wait time for a dispatcher to pick up a 911 call was three seconds, Wallen said.

“The ring cycle is six seconds. So, basically we’re answering those (calls) in half a ring, which I think is a pretty good average,” he said.

Wallen’s report ended with data on Lyon County Jail populations. Inmates were booked into the Lyon County Jail 761 times in 2024. Wallen said the total number of bookings wasn’t the same thing as the number of people in the county jail last year. Some inmates were in jail more than once during the year.

“Just for reference, in 2023 we had 796 (bookings). So 30 less,” Wallen said.

Of the total bookings in 2024, 65 were inmates from Murray County. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office currently contracts with Murray County to house jail inmates.

On average, the jail had a daily population of about 33 inmates in 2024. The average length of a person’s stay in the Lyon County Jail was about 15 days.

Wallen said the number of people being booked into jail was staying close to the same from year to year, but inmates were staying in jail for a shorter amount of time.

“When people ask, ‘Why are the numbers so low?’ We’re bringing them in. They’re just not staying,” he said. “There’s been some change in the criminal justice system when it comes to bail … I think some of the driving factors in the reduced bail is to be more fair to the economic abilities and financial abilities of the people in the system.”

However, people released on lower bail amounts do sometimes get in trouble and get arrested again, Wallen said.

“The way that bail is set in Minnesota, there’s two amounts,” explained Lyon County Attorney Abby Wikelius. “There’s conditional bail and unconditional bail. Unconditional bail is just a flat amount of money you have to pay to the court. Conditional bail is, you have to abide by certain conditions, and then you can get out. The theory is that public safety is protected if you’re doing things such as abstaining from drugs and alcohol, and submitting to (drug) testing while you’re on release.”

Wikelius said the system had “mixed results” with lower conditional bail.

“For some people, that can be a pathway to finding sobriety. Some people aren’t as successful,” Wikelius said.