They should be ending their patrol just about now:
"In Lawrence, a blue line stretched thin; Friday night patrols shed light on steep challenges as cash-strapped city fights crime with fewer officers" May 25, 2011|By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff
LAWRENCE — Five years ago, Lawrence police were touting a steady drop in crime and an 18-month period with no homicides — a startling statistic for a city that in the 1990s had been considered one of the state’s most dangerous. Officials at the time credited community policing initiatives and sophisticated gang intelligence for the decline.
Today, the antigang unit and other specialized squads no longer exist, the victims of cuts imposed last year by Mayor William Lantigua, who slashed funding for the police and other city departments as he confronted a massive budget deficit. Community policing, a law enforcement philosophy that puts more emphasis on preventing violence than responding to it, is virtually nonexistent. Police officials say they barely have the staff to respond to regular calls.
A Globe reporter spent two Friday nights with police officers as they patrolled this city of about 77,000. The ride-alongs, as well as interviews with other officers and top brass, suggest a force that is tense, on edge, and always waiting for the eruption that will overwhelm its diminished numbers....
Morale at the Police Department is low. Police work out of a cinderblock building on Lowell Street that was built in 1963 and does not look as if it has seen much renovation since.
File cabinets are wedged under stairwells because there is no other space for them. The doors are scuffed. The concrete stairs leading up to the department are breaking up. Cobwebs drift over award plaques adorning the walls around the front desk.
“It’s a dump,’’ said Captain Roy Vasque, 43....
Last Friday night, police said the mayor’s chief economic development officer, smelling of alcohol, berated them for towing illegally parked cars outside a restaurant and allegedly impeded a tow truck — an incident first reported by the Lawrence Eagle Tribune. The officer said he decided not to arrest the official, Patrick Blanchette, for disorderly conduct because he feared retribution from the mayor’s administration. Blanchette has denied the officers’ version of events.
Some Lawrence police officers have become major sources of information for federal and state investigators probing Lantigua’s control of certain businesses connected to the city, including nightclubs, according to people familiar with the investigation.
See: Civil War in Lawrence
Police Chief John Romero said he does not blame Lantigua for the cuts, but he is worried about the long-term effect they will have.
“It’s a tough economy. We were hit really hard,’’ he said. “But I think any future of a city is based on its public safety. People are not going to move here, they’re not going to bring businesses here if they don’t feel safe.’’
The Globe reporter and photographer patrolled with Lawrence officers from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. — typically the busiest times for police, when people are partying at clubs or private homes. The patrols were marked by long periods of quiet, punctuated by the occasional call for a fight outside a club that would break up long before police arrived.
But they are short manpower and... sigh.
During down time, officers checked in on clubs where the music was too loud or drove by bars they suspected were engaged in illegal gambling.
Your tax buck at work!
Often, if they saw a small crowd lingering outside a club, smoking or chatting, they would order them back inside.
Occasionally, they ran into drug addicts and prostitutes they have known for years....
Time to legalize both.
--more--"
Update: Lantigua’s finance reports rife with suspect gaps
Woman shot, critically injured in Lawrence
