QUINCY — Quincy Police Chief Ryan Green said full staffing and proactive policing are important factors in combating crime and that some of the results show up in the QPD’s 2025 annual report. 

Arrests for assaults with weapons increased from 8 in 2024 to 30 in 2025, while DUI arrests increased from 22 in 2024 to 67 in 2025.  

“That’s being a little more proactive with our law enforcement,” he said.   

With enough staff, individual officers could take more time with individual cases, he said. 

Simple assaults decreased from 84 in 2024 to 66 in 2025, which Green said was an example of the sort of proactive policing and cooperation that’s most effective. 

Traditionally, many of the simple assaults were fights before and after school, he said; the Quincy School District hired a school security officer to work on addressing those situations. District officials worked with the QPD and its school resource officer, what Green called a layered approach, which made that more effective, he said.  

He cautioned Quincy City Council members at the March 3 meeting that statistics can be misleading. 

“Statistics are weird in the police business,” Green said. “We want to put them out there for transparency, but we’re a small agency, so when we get a few extra things, it looks significant.” 

He cited the assault with weapons arrests as an example. 

“We went from eight to 30, which is significant, but next year we could be back down to eight (arrests),” he said. 

Most of Quincy’s police activity was for relatively minor incidents, he said. 

“Those are problems that every community has, and if that’s what we’ve got, we’re doing a good job,” he said.  

The report said the QPD answered 4,111 calls for service in 2025, resulting in 221 arrests, including people who were cited and released. The department issued 939 infractions in 2025 compared with 360 in 2024. Officers conducted 3,154 traffic stops, compared with 1,399 in 2024. 

Animal calls decreased from 273 in 2024 to 226 in 2025. Green said Quincy experienced a surge in animal calls and animal shelter usage following the coronavirus pandemic, but those appear to be leveling off. 

The city’s animal shelter is administered by QPD. In 2025, there were 720 animals brought into the shelter, about the same as the 727 who came to the shelter in 2024. Of those, 677 were adopted. That compares to 695 in 2024.  

Green said the city works with agencies in Seattle to place animals that don’t find homes around Quincy.  

The QPD has had some turnover, he said, and there are officers out on family leave, so staffing has decreased. The department will be advertising to fill two vacant positions. 

Inadequate staffing is a problem nationally, Green said, and Quincy must compete with bigger agencies. The number of people interested in law enforcement careers is increasing, however. 

“We’re starting to see a lot more people apply,” he said.