February 2009

Surry Police Department - End of Year 2008 Report

http://home.webryders.net/surry/

Once again we have begun our summer months with several vehicle break-ins, thefts and vandalism complaints at the Dort Rd parking lot. And once again, almost all of them were the direct result of people either leaving their cars unlocked, the windows down or valuables out in plain sight. We are also experiencing a horrendous amount of littering around the entire Dort Rd area. This mostly consists of liquor and beer bottles and cans. The Lt has been working very hard for over a year now attempting to get some town ordinances in place, primarily some alcohol open container policies, to address this issue. Once those are in effect, hopefully prior to busy season, we’ll have another tool at our disposal to help rectify that issue.

Did anyone notice that for about the last three months of 2008, the cruisers haven’t been seen around town patrolling much? Did you realize that the entire Town of Surry has had extremely minimal police coverage due to the selectmen wanting us not out patrolling so that our special detail and operating budgets could be commandeered? Well, it’s true. Sometime around the beginning of October, the selectmen decided that we didn’t need to be out patrolling, claiming the need to balance the books. This resulted in, first and foremost, the lack of basic police protection for the town. We also had planned very carefully and diligently early in the year to have some of our end of year budget available to replace our ballistic vests and obtain some replacement training needs. We now have to take those expenditures out of the ’09 budget, potentially leaving us short, because of the inability to plan ahead as we did in ’08. We appreciate the fact that times are tough, but essentially eliminating public safety is not a wise thing to do. Typically, as the economy deteriorates, crime increases.

Sometime back in 2006 the Lt began working toward getting the Surry cruisers on the list to have new computers and electronic controls installed as part of a grant that was available. The waiting list was quite long, and finally came to fruition in the spring of ’08. Thanks to that grant, we were able to get both cars outfitted with Project-54 equipment. For those that are unfamiliar with “P54”, basically it’s voice command control of all radio, emergency signaling and records management systems allowing us to keep our “hands on the wheel” as we’re using various things. All new equipment was acquired at absolutely NO expense to the town and it was all installed by Officer Talbot. If the county ever supports mobile data, we’ll be ready!

As usual, we want to extend our thanks to the Surry Fire, Rescue and Highway departments for their continued assistance and support throughout the year.

Respectfully Submitted,

Gerald Clark Chief of Police

Joel Huntley Lieutenant

Scott Talbot Patrolman

Joseph Marquay Patrolman

02/01/2009

STATS '08

5 MV Accidents

0 MV Accidents w/Injuries

0 MV Accidents Hit & Run

1 MV Accident - Fatality

18 Criminal Cases

0 Burglary

2 Criminal Arrests

17 MV Summons

117 Misc MV Stops

1 OHRV Complaints

1 Domestics

2 Noise Complaints

12 Assist Outside Agencies

9 Alarms/9-1-1 Calls

6 Prowler/Suspicious Persons/Vehicles

47 Misc Calls

3 Animal Complaints

278 Personal Contacts (Any official activity when a persons name would be obtained.)

5 Number of calls between 2300 & 0600

THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY CALLS FOR SERVICE HANDLED BY THE STATE POLICE

103 Total Calls for Service as of 12/31/2008

122 Calls 2007