Can somebody please explain why police in this town are so averse to doing any sort of meaningful speed enforcement? Why do they have such a high tolerance for speeding on local roads? People are fed up with speeding and the police don't seem to care.
You are so wrong the police are everywhere. You clearly do not like the police. How is your vision lately?
We receive so much money in the over night parking and parking lots. They did not record the amount brought in for this. Melrose, is a place you cut through, or doctors appointment. Not too much goes on here. That is why I moved here a long time ago.
I was thinking it was around this time of year that the tragic accident on Howard St happened. I don't remember reading if it was because of sun, speed, or any other cause. I know they had reenactment. I hope the reduced speed is working on Howard St
Maybe they do not have enough officers to be everywhere. Between the speeding, texting, bike lanes domestics,drugs,fraud,cyber crime,overdoses, bomb dogs and trucks at the end of the Victorian fair. etc etc. Shouldn't we have at least 10 more guys to handle some of the more mundane activities? I believe there was a city funded audit done a few years back that said the Police needed at lease 15 more Officers to be efficient. I do jot think we ever put any additional officers on. Plus we just lowered the speed limit which had been 30 mph for years. We are asking them to do more With much less instead of properly staffing them with the best equipment.
That’s a common misconception. On average, a Melrose officer only handles 4 or 5 calls on each shift. They have plenty of capacity to do more. They just lack the will apparently.
There is speeding as in going over the speed limit and then there's high speed movie style driving. The former is actually normal but seems to be yet another cause for concern (sigh) by some of our more nervous residents. The latter drivers are pulled over if observed by the police.
Very well said. I think Mr McPhee believes that just because he doesn't read it in the paper or log then it didn't happen. We all know that Melrose is notorious for keeping their logs light to keep the property values up. I like the fact that he didn't even address the very high priced audit study that was voted on by the Aldermen that basically stated that the Melrose Police either need much more personnel or much more $$$ for overtimes to address these issues. I think that company was with the Melrose Police for over a month where the newspaper article he refers to probably just downloaded some statistics or got an email which took about ten minutes.
i work in the melrose station.mr speedy is so wrong on amount of calls we recieve on each shift .of course all shifts are different.average calls per officer on any given shift is 8-14 calls.just speaking the facts....
Wow, that is so false I don't know if you're lying or just uninformed. According to your department's annual report, in FY2016 you "entered 17,476 log reports." There are 63 patrol shifts per week, not including the fourth traffic officer. Simple math reveals that's an average of 5.3 calls for each shift in FY16. That was more than a year ago though. What's your call volume like now? Hint: it's not increasing.
8-14 calls per shift? Don't kid yourself. You're not that busy. We probably even need to cut a few positions.
The 2012 management study said they needed to use their existing resources more efficiently, not hire more officers.
https://patch.com/massachusetts/melrose/melrose-police-management-study-released
I love the change, the speed signs for a reminder and the wonderful Melrose Police Department for keeping us safe. All police.[Cop]
mom of 3 you are the one that is wrong. i work there you dont.last nite i took 14 calls in my section of the city and assisted on 3 in the mt hood area also had 6 stops on cars.this is melrose not boston.get over it she lost.
I’ll look at your dispatch logs when they come out next week to verify that 14 calls were logged that night. However, last week, there were roughly 40 total calls logged each day. So that would mean that you handled something like 35% of the department’s daily call volume single handedly in one shift. That means the other 8 officers who worked that day each handled a paltry 2.7 calls.
Stop whining and start enforcing speed limits. It’s not that hard of a concept.
A lot of useful data they're going to get with that speed radar trailer in the middle of Grove St.... You have to slow down to go around it since it blocks the lane.
Now that the speed limit is 25 city wide I guess we can all get golf carts and go carts and use them on the roads around town.
1. No way “Ryan” is a cop. I know many of them and they stay far away from this cesspool of a website.
2. Melrose is growing along with the call logs.
3. If you think some of the calls aren’t edited or hidden you are a ******* moron. It is pretty logical to believe that if all of the bad calls were shown then property values would decrease.
4. Either put up the tax money to hire more officers or quit your whining.
Are you saying that police are committing fraud by under reporting their crime stats?
Hey dude, I checked the dispatch logs as promised and here's what I found:
9/29 - 3:45 p.m. - 11:45 p.m.: 20 total calls for the entire city (4 total mv car stops, 2 in mt hood area).
9/29 11:45 p.m. - 9/30 7:45 a.m. - 8 calls for the entire city (no car stops)
9/30 - 3:45 to 11:45 shift: 9 total calls for the entire city (only 1 car stop in the entire city)
10/1 - 11:45 p.m. to 7:45 a.m.: 11 total calls for the entire city (no car stops in the entire city)
Assuming the shift you're talking is about was on 9/29, that means you handled 70 percent of the city's calls during that time period. That's awesome for your two other patrol colleagues, who handled a whopping 3 calls each during their shifts. Instead of sitting in their cars ******* around on their phones for the entire shift, maybe they could have done some actual police work at some point, like speed enforcement.
Does that REALLY surprise you to hear? It didn't surprise me. And the way it was described to me was "editing." For example my buddy told me he went to a stabbing and it was listed as a "disturbance", see what I'm saying? Another gem he told me about was a home invasion, kidnapping, domestic, another "disturbance" in the log. So technically they're not lying because, well, that is quite the "disturbance." Drug overdoes often times are "medical emergencies", see what I'm getting at? They get away with it because they're not really lying, they're just not telling the full story.
Thats sort of correct. When a incident is reported, it's assigned a case number and a heading in the computer system, which describes the way it was reported. It's also typed into the daily log the same way. What happens is after that no one ever edits the initial computer heading, and none of the details ever get put into the log that the media gets. You have to read the entire report to find out what the details were and what the final outcome was, for example - did it remain just a disturbance, or did it escalate into something else, like a stabbing? Unless there was an arrest report, you'd miss it. Whether it's deliberate or not is anyone's guess, but I guarantee you that's the way the Mayor and the realtors all like it.
The same thing happened with the zip code in Melrose. The realtors had their hands in that too.
And of course you will never hear of any repercussions for the school and city employees implicated in the Federal Civil Rights findings at the middle school or for the elementary school principal who admitted to filing the false police report against the family who filed a complaint against one of her teachers, or the city attorney who also piled on and threatened the parents with a criminal harassment complaint if they didn't back off of their complaint. In any other city, these "public servants" would be indicted. Nope, everything is hunky-dory here in Mayberry according to the realtors. [:-|]
Some of the signs the city has out to show the speed? It is a accident waiting to happen...[:-?]
Go down Melrose St.! The sign is taking up half of the St. Kids are crossing in front of this sign an not with the crossing guard.
Are any of the candidates on tomorrow's ballot opposed to the 25 mph limit?
I do no think so just go 30.[CoolYa]
Monica was the only alderman to vote against it.
No, actually, it's exactly the opposite. The Free Press, in it's journalistic excellence, simply grabs the police log and prints what's in it, when what they ought to be reporting on is the content of the police report on each incident - two different things. The log only contains the initial entry on an incident. For instance, if the initial call describes a man sleeping in a car, that's what goes into the log entry. The problem is that the log entries sometimes don't describe what's actually happening because no one ever goes back in an edits it once an officer arrives on scene and finds out. All that is contained in the report, and the Free Press never asks for those.
It's not the Mayor and Police who are in cahoots. Most of the cops can't stand the Mayor. It's the Mayor (and the realtors) and the newspapers that are in cahoots - they won't print anything that would contradict the image of Melrose as a wonderful community unless they can't bury it. It's all bull$hit.
The Mayor treats Chief Lyle like ****.....the police have no respect for Dolan. Public Safety is last on the City priority list. Sick of the schools taking all of our tax dollars. The Republicans and Trump are ruining this country and the "trickle down" economics will make the middle class extinct. We need a new fire and police station ONLY. Other building projects will have to wait!
If the cops did something all night other than sitting in their cars ******* around on their phones then maybe Dolan would respect them more.