Springfield, TN – (June 11th, 2019)- The Robertson County Sheriff’s Office learned last evening that a decision had been made to close the doors and disband the Ridgetop Police Department.
Back on May 3rd, 2019, the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call from Ridgetop Mayor Tony Reasoner, stating that the Ridgetop Police Department was going to move to a part-time department. In a meeting that took place yesterday evening, a final decision was made to fully close the police department down.
Because of this decision, the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office will be responding to calls for law enforcement service inside the city limits of Ridgetop, TN. This does place an increased call volume on the Sheriff’s Office Patrol Division. The Sheriff’s Office is also currently responding to calls for service for Coopertown Police Department and Cross Plains Police Department when they are not available. The City of Cross Plains currently has not filled two full-time police officer positions and is only utilizing one part-time officer. Additionally, the Coopertown Police Department is not operating 24/7 law enforcement services.
In order to minimize response times, Sheriff Michael Van Dyke has requested the county commission to provide additional Patrol Deputies for the fiscal year 2019-2020. “The Sheriff’s Office is dedicated to providing professional law enforcement services to every citizen of Robertson County, and must be allocated the resources to do so”, stated Sheriff Michael Van Dyke.