COPS Funds Pose Quandary For Reading Police Department

A big new batch of federal grant money is available to police departments that want to hire more officers, but the strings attached to it make it uncertain whether Reading will apply.
Reading Police Chief William M. Heim said the city is eligible to apply for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) funds from the U.S. Department of Justice for the first time since 2009, when it received $1 million.

A review of grant program rules posted online indicates the city might be able to apply for partial funding of as many as eight police officer positions. Heim said he will be looking at the rules in the coming week.

Law enforcement funding was a big issue at the Berks-Reading crime summit in January, and the COPS application deadline is May 22.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=473304

BOSTON BOMB SUSPECT IS CAPTURED

BOSTON — The teenage suspect in the marathon bombings, whose flight from the police after a furious gunfight early Friday morning sparked an intense manhunt that virtually shut down the entire Boston metropolitan area all day, was taken into custody Friday night after the police found him hiding in a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Mass., a senior law enforcement official said.

Two law enforcement officials said that the suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was found in a boat parked behind a house there.  It was not immediately clear what condition he was in.

A police officer at the scene said that the man was covered in blood when he was captured.  An ambulance was already there. The Boston Police Department announced on Twitter:  “Suspect in custody.  Officers sweeping the area.”  And Mayor Thomas M. Menino posted, “We got him.”

As around 30 law enforcement officers — wearing helmets — walked away from the scene of what had been a tense standoff only minutes earlier, neighbors who had gathered on an adjacent street applauded and shouted, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?hp&_r=0

Chester Mayor Shakes Up Police Department

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Delaware County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  This will never happen in Pottstown, sigh…..

In something of a leadership shake-up, Chester Mayor John Linder has replaced three of his highest level police officers with three formerly lower-ranking lawmen.

In addition, the mayor announced Tuesday that he has created a police narcotics task force and beefed up highway patrol.

Linder, who also is the city’s public safety director, said the personnel moves are part of the changes and on-going assessment he vowed when he took office last year.

“I saw some areas I wanted to change, and the only way to change things was to move (personnel) around,” Linder said Tuesday.

Read more:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130402_Chester_mayor_shakes_up_police_department.html

Fired West Reading Chief Coming Back As Patrolman, Sources Say

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  We think this is a bad idea…just sayin’.

West Reading’s fired Police Chief Edward C. Fabriziani will return to the force as a patrolman in a deal being ironed out by borough officials, borough sources said.

Fabriziani, who was fired in November, is listed on the patrol schedule starting in April to cover other officers’ vacations, according to borough sources.

Borough council is expected to vote on the matter either at its regular March meeting or at a special meeting.

Fabriziani could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=455592

 

Northern Berks Regional To Cut 1 Officer, Keep 2 Older Cars

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bowing to pressure to cut costs, the Northern Berks Regional Police Commission is going to trim one police officer and forgo plans to replace two of the department’s older cars.

The commission unanimously approved a $1.95 million budget Wednesday that keeps spending at 2012 levels and is nearly $290,000 less than the draft version presented earlier this month.

The police commission, composed of elected officials from Ontelaunee and Maidencreek townships and Leesport, said the municipalities could not afford to pay more for police coverage in 2013 and earlier this month asked the department to find places to cut costs.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=439234

Driver Killed In Reading Crash

A city man was killed Thursday when he drove through a red light on Schuylkill Avenue at Buttonwood Street while talking on a cellphone and his car was hit broadside by a work van, authorities said.

Jose E. DeJesus Garcia, 53, who investigators said lived in the northwestern area of the city not far from the crash site, was pulled from the car by a nearby resident as the vehicle caught fire following the 8:25 a.m. accident.  He died before police arrived.

Within minutes, police vehicles, firetrucks and ambulances filled a one-block area that was strewn with mangled vehicle parts.  Firefighters quickly put out the burning car.

City detectives and evidence technicians responded along with patrol officers.  The intersection was closed nearly four hours, slowing commuter traffic on other routes.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/Article.aspx?id=432081

Exeter Township Police Chief: ‘We’re At Bare Bones’

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exeter Township Supervisor Dona L. Starr has dispelled fears that the township is considering reducing its police force to help balance the budget.

“There’s one, two, three, four board members who have never even mentioned laying off police officers,” Starr told a crowd of officers and police supporters at a special budget workshop meeting.  ”I believe that the Exeter Township Police Department is the best in the county, and I want to keep it that way.  I’m not willing to lay off any officers.  I’m not willing to make any cuts.”

Starr’s comments at Wednesday’s meeting came after statements by Supervisor Kenneth A. Smith, who said he would not be opposed to reducing the police force to make up a $230,000 shortfall in the 2013 budget.

That number is down from an initial budget gap of about $400,000 in August.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=426255

Reading City Council Agrees To Hire 12 Probationary Police Officers

City Council on Monday agreed to hire 12 probationary police officers to get the police force, gutted by retirements, up to its authorized strength of 168 officers.

The new probationers, who entered the Reading Police Academy earlier in the day, are in addition to about two-dozen new officers who just completed or are still in field training.

But even those won’t be enough to keep the force at full strength, with more retirements expected this year, much less get the force back to the more than 200 officers it had several years ago.

Meanwhile, council awarded a design contract as the city gets started on replacing the first equipment at the wastewater treatment plant on Fritz’s Island, required by state and federal environmental agencies in 2004 as part of a court-ordered consent decree.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=402193

Williamsport: Weeklong Shooting Spree Continues

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Williamsport is having a bad week.  There have been four shootings since Sunday.  Yesterday afternoon shots were fired between two vehicles a few blocks west of Williamsport General Hospital.  One person was wounded and taken to a local hospital.

Sunday night a nonfatal shooting occurred in Memorial Park.  Early Wednesday morning a second nonfatal shooting occurred on West Fourth Street.  Wednesday night a Philadelphia man was killed along High Street.

Police and city officials and trying to come up with a solution for the recent rash of gunfire.  Police say the shootings are not random.

Some demographics on Williamsport courtesy of City-data.com:  2009 population estimate 29,304, land area is 8.88 square miles, number of police officers 53, City-data 2009 crime index was 322.1 (low), 2009 estimated median household income $25,101, 2009 estimate per capita income $16,442 and the unemployment rate as of April 2010 was 10.4%.