Council hears update from police chief

By PHIL MONSON

HUMBOLDT - Jacob Miller, who has served as Humboldt Chief of Police for the last 14 months, provided an update and read a statement of support at the regular meeting of the Humboldt City Council on Monday night, Jan. 5.

“It’s the start of a new year and I wanted to give you an update of where the police department is at, where we’ve headed and what we have gone through over the last year,” said Miller, who handed out activity charts to the council.

“Over the last year we have struggled with staffing. Sometimes we’ve been down to four and sometimes three. A lot of on-call. A lot of late nights. It has been challenging, to say the least. However, I want to take this opportunity to commend the officers in what they’ve been doing,” Miller said.

“Officer Williams (Amber) has taken over 1,000 calls for service this past year. I’m right up there with her being on the day shift. It’s something where you go from 12 hours on the day shift and then 12 hours of being on call,” Miller said. “It’s rough. She’s not here tonight but I wanted to commend their actions.”

Miller had praise for officer Dalton Runneberg, who returned to the department after living out of state for the past 12 months. One of the action items at the meeting was the council approving re-hiring Runneberg on a full-time basis at an hourly rate of $33.29 per hour. He also praised the newest officer, Tanner Boyd, who was hired in the fall.

“Dalton and Tanner are doing phenomenal in my estimation,” Miller said.

“Over the past year the police department has operated through a period of sustained operational challenges. We have faced personnel turnover. A lack of academy commitments and extended shifts that have pushed our staff to the limits,” Miller said.

“There were times this past year where we were stretched thin, but despite the fatigue, the men and women of this agency stayed in the arena. They are the ones showing up at 2 a.m. and making split decisions under imperfect conditions with limited resources,” Miller said.

“This year they handled a full spectrum of community needs. From shoplifting and fraud, to domestic violence, narcotics cases and mental health crises. To put our workload in perspective, in 2025, the Humboldt Police Department responded to 2,839 calls for service,” Miller said. “That comes to eight calls every single day, for an entire year for a department that was actively building itself.”

“This was carried out by a dedicated few. In fact, one of our officers, officer Williams, had over 1,000 calls for service. That is not an outlier, that is an operation reality carried out day after day. Shift after shift. Data shows there is a sustained demand for our presence. There is no off-season for public safety. Behind every one of those numbers is a person having the worst day of their lives and a Humboldt officer stepping into the gap,” Miller said.

Read the full story in this week's issue of the Humboldt Independent!