Police Department
Monthly Report
|
Police Department |
|
James L. Cetran
Chief of Police
The Administrative Services Bureau, with assistance from the Support Services Bureau Training Unit, assisted with the planning and preparation of National Night Out. This event was held on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at Millwoods Park. The event was held with assistance from the Town of Wethersfield Parks & Recreation Department, Office of the Fire Marshal and the Wethersfield Volunteer Fire Department. Several hundred residents of all ages attended and had the opportunity to meet representatives from the above departments as well as persons from the Wethersfield Police Department Patrol Division, Motorcycle Unit, Capitol Region Emergency Services Team and Police Explorers.
On August 22, 2007 Officer Gary Luiz graduated from the Connecticut Police Academy. He successfully completed the twenty-two week Basic Training Academy. Officer Luiz received approximately six-hundred and fifty hours of instruction on topics such as Police and the Law, Human Relations, Patrol Procedures, Accident Investigation and Firearms. He will now be assigned to a Field Training Officer where he will receive an additional twelve weeks of training at the Wethersfield Police Department.
The Wethersfield Police Department hiring process continues with members of the Detective Bureau conducting background investigations on the ten applicants previously given Conditional Offers of Employment. The Wethersfield Police Department currently has one vacancy that was created with the retirement of Sergeant David A. Warriner.
On August 24, 2007 at approximately 3:30 AM an officer was dispatched to the rear parking lot of a motel on Arrow Road on the report of an argument taking place between a male and a female. Upon the officer's arrival, he saw a male and a female arguing. The officer then spoke to the two individuals and determined that there had been a physical fight between the two. As the officer was trying to speak to the male, the male ran to a nearby car and quickly opened and closed the car door. Investigation revealed that the male and female were arguing when the male tried to get in his car and leave. The female stepped in front of the car to get the male to stop. Instead, the male drove into the female knocking her to the ground. During the investigation, an officer looked into the car that the male had gone into and saw what he believed to be a large quantity of cocaine and marijuana on the seat of the car. The male was arrested for assaulting the female and for possession of cocaine and marijuana.
On August 26, 2007 at about 7:30 PM several officers were dispatched to the area of Stillman Road on the report that a black-colored vehicle was chasing another black-colored vehicle throughout the neighborhood. A second report came in that several males and a female were running through the backyards of area residences. Upon the officers' arrival, they located the two black-colored vehicles operated by two males. An investigation revealed that the two males were traveling in Hartford when they spotted their relative's stolen vehicle being driven by a female with several passengers. The males chased their relative's stolen vehicle into Wethersfield where the stolen car stopped and the occupants fled on foot. One relative then got into the stolen car while the other stayed in their own car. The two then searched the area looking for the people responsible for stealing the car. When officers arrived they stopped both black-colored vehicles and two of the people who had been traveling in the stolen car. The two who had been in the stolen car and then ran through the neighborhood were arrested for several charges related to being in the stolen car.
In August, 2007 members of the Detective Bureau initiated or were assigned follow-up to twenty new cases. The investigations include two robberies, five fraud cases, three burglaries, four identity thefts and six pistol permits, WVAA, and WVFD background checks.
On August 22, 2007 at about 9:00 PM officers responded to a reported robbery in progress at a Silas Deane Highway business. An employee reported that an unknown male held her up at gun point and took three night deposit bank bags. Responding officers located a suspect vehicle near this location and arrested three individuals for the robbery. Members of the Detective Bureau assisted in the investigation.
The Wethersfield Police Department, Juvenile Unit, investigated thirty-five incidents involving approximately seventy-four juveniles. In these incidents, five juveniles were arrested for criminal violations and one juvenile was taken into custody on a court order for immediate transport to a juvenile detention center. The remainder of these juveniles were diverted to their parents or other authorities without any further police investigation.
The Department Explorer program conducted a promotional examination process in order to fill expected vacancies in the near future. The examination consisted of a written and oral exam modeled after police based promotional exams. The results of the process will be announced in September, 2007.
On August 18, 2007 the Wethersfield Police Explorers participated in Dinosaur State Park Day in Rocky Hill. The Police Explorers assisted in parking the overflow of vehicles from the park's lot to an adjacent field. Hundreds of patrons came to the park for the event. Organizers stated that they could not have conducted the event without our Explorers.
In August, 2007 Wethersfield Dispatchers received and handled 887 E-911 emergency phone calls. Wethersfield Dispatchers dispatched the Wethersfield Volunteer Ambulance and Aetna Ambulance to a total of 265 medical emergencies.
The Wethersfield Police Department, Support Services Bureau, recently submitted the Department statistics in four categories to the Connecticut Police Chief's Association (CPCA) for the Labor Day weekend (12:00 PM, Friday, August 31, 2007 through Midnight, Monday, September 3, 2007). The CPCA collects each Department's statistics in four areas including number of motor vehicle stops, number of DUI arrests, number of motor vehicle accidents and number of accidents involving a fatality. The Wethersfield Police Department reported the following activity for this period to the CPCA;
| MV Stops | 171 |
| DUI Arrests | 2 |
| MV Accidents | 11 |
| MV Fatalities | 0 |
Every officer of the Wethersfield Police Department is working hard to reduce accidents, decrease speed and deter drunk driving.
The Support Services Bureau Commander continues to receive requests for added or replacement street signs. Several work orders were completed for new or replacement street signs throughout Wethersfield. Some of these work orders included redesigning the sign configuration at the intersection of Angela Drive and Colonial Drive, installing one handicap parking sign in the Hanmer School parking lot, replacing the metal support pole of the eastbound amber flashing school zone warning sign on the south side of Wells Road (in between 522-528 Wells Road) and replacing faded stop signs at several locations including Fairlane Drive/ Fox Hill Road, Carriage Hill Drive/ Fox Hill Road and Two Brook Road/ Fox Hill Road.
The Wethersfield Chamber of Commerce Cornfest will be held on Saturday, September 15, 2007 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The Old Wethersfield Fall Craft Fair will be held at Cove Park on Saturday, October 6, 2007 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Police personnel will be used to support these events to include pre-event planning and event traffic control. Police Explorers will also assist at the Cornfest.
Emergency personnel were dispatched to a total of seventy-five alarms during the month of August, 2007 of which seventy were deemed to be chargeable alarms. Eighteen locations were billed this month for violating the false alarm ordinance. Forty new alarm registrations were received from residents / businesses in the month of August. To date, there are a total of 915 locations with active alarm systems registered with the Police Department.
The following are the burglary and robbery statistics for the month of August, 2007 along with comparative statistics for the same period of last year. The figures in the parenthesis represent the number of cases cleared by arrest or in which the perpetrators have been identified.
| Criminal Activity | August 2006 | August 2007 |
|---|---|---|
| Residential Burglaries | 2 (0) | 3 (0) |
| Commercial Burglaries | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| Armed Robberies | 0 (0) | 2 (1) |
| Strong-arm Robberies | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
