St. Cloud police responded to nearly 54,000 calls last year -- a five-year high. Police Chief Blair Anderson told St. Cloud Times reporter David Unze that an increase in calls threatening suicide "jumps out at me."

After responding to 373 suicide threats in 2011 and 443 in 2012, the number rose to 508 last year.

Anderson, who took over the department in the fall of 2012, said he wasn't sure why more people were threatening to take their own lives, but he said that several times a week, his officers are placing people on 72-hour holds because they might harm themselves.

Robbery calls dropped in St. Cloud from 53 in 2012 to 33 last year, while shoplifting was way up -- soaring from 358 calls in 2012 to 602 last year.