Lane County Mugshots ©

  By Michael Weber April 15, 2026 - 2:23 pm As of April 2026, law enforcement in Lane County operates under two very different realities. The Lane County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) is responsible for the sprawling unincorporated areas of the county, while the Eugene Police Department (EPD) protects the compact urban core of Oregon’s second-largest city. The numbers reveal a stark imbalance in resources and geography that directly shapes how each agency can respond to crime. Lane County deputies patrol roughly 4,600 square miles,  an area stretching from the Cascade foothills to the Pacific coast. That is more than 100 times the 44 square miles covered by the Eugene Police Department. The sheriff’s office has jurisdiction over approximately 119,000 residents in the unincorporated county, about one-third of Lane County’s total population. Yet despite those vast distances and population, LCSO’s total sworn patrol staff, including patrol deputies, investigators, and supervisors, sta...

Eugene, Or. -   April 14, 2026 — Randall DeWitt Simons , the former photographer known for taking some of the last images of murdered child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, is expected to walk free this week as Lane County prosecutors formally entered a motion to dismiss all charges against him today.  SIMONS - OREGON DOC Simons was transferred today from Two Rivers Correctional Institution and booked into the Lane County Jail solely to attend today's procedural court hearing. At today's hearing, his 2019 conviction on 15 counts of first-degree encouraging child sexual abuse (ORS 163.684) was officially motioned to be dismissed. Simons, now 73, represented himself pro se during the brief proceeding. The case collapsed following a landmark Oregon Supreme Court ruling on March 26, 2026. In State v. DeWitt Simons , 375 Or 70 (2026), the court held that police violated Simons’ rights under Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution by directing a year-long warrantless surveilla...