Community police unit hears from several agencies


By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The police department’s Community Police Unit heard from several agencies Thursday so officers can have a better understanding of how they can connect people in their wards to needed services.

Among those who spoke at the unit’s headquarters at the former fire station at Mahoning and Eleanor avenues was city Prosecutor Dana Lantz; Guy Burney, director of the Community Initiative To Reduce Violence; the social worker for the department’s Family Investigative Services Unit, which investigates cases involving juveniles or families; and Dianne Fry, Mahoning County dog warden.

Detective Sgt. Pat Kelly, the unit’s supervisor, said he wants members of the unit to know not only how to connect residents to services, but also to pass the word to have some of those agencies call community police to take care of certain neighborhood problems, rather than tie up a patrol car.

The unit, which began this week, has an officer assigned exclusively to each of the city’s seven wards. The idea is to have those officers form connections with residents and community groups and stay in those wards every day to work on those problems, thus freeing up patrol cars to take more calls and do more patrolling.

One area on which Kelly said he wants to focus is animal calls, and Fry told the members of the unit about some of the things the county dog pound can do. She said there is an after-hours kennel at the Industrial Road facility available to law enforcement stocked with food and water where they can take a dog if necessary.

Fry said a lot of animal calls are basically educating people about what rules they have to follow to keep a dog. Often, she said, a citation is a last resort.

“I don’t want to pull a ‘gotcha’ on everybody,” Fry said.

Fry said it is important people know they need to take care of their animals not just for the health of the animal, but also to help with the safety and appearance of the neighborhood.

Rabid raccoons also have been a problem in recent years. Officer Joe Moran, a member of the unit assigned to the 1st Ward, said those calls can take at least 90 minutes out of the shift of an officer on the beat, because if an officer has to destroy a raccoon, there is paperwork to fill out. Plus, the carcass must be disposed of, and sometimes an extra officer is needed to help snare the animal – and in some circumstances a safe area must be found away from people to make sure no one is hurt by gunfire.

“It’s a waste of manpower,” Moran said.

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