BEND, OR -- The Deschutes County Sheriff's Office has a new team for "quality of life" crimes. Sgt. William Bailey says the Community Action Target (CAT) Team will focus on distracted driving, illegal drugs, theft, trespassing and criminal mischief, "This proactive team will solely be focusing on those issues and able to spend the time, surveillance and the other needed investigative tactics to address these quality of life issues in our communities."

Sgt. Bailey tells KBND News, "Getting requests from the community and wanting to address these issues developed into this proactive team so that the normal patrol shifts can still focus on their duties, responding to calls; but, the proactive team that's out and about is able to focus solely on that quality of life issue, and give them the time and the resources needed to address it." He says, "A normal patrol Deputy, the call response always takes priority, so they can get pulled away from that issue they're trying to address. This team is able to solely focus on that because they're in addition to our normal patrol shift."