LPD press conference

e444_police_pressconference — At center, Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera. 2nd row, left to right, LPD Chief, Capt. Jim Fitzpatrick; Councilor at Large, Roger Twomey; Councilor at Large and Council President Modesto Maldonado; District F City Councilor Mark Laplante and District C city councilor Kendrys Vazquez. 3rd. row: Lt. Dan Fleming, Officer Hal Rogers, Officer Angel Lopez, Officer Pat Noonan, Officer Kevin Schiavone. 4th. row: Officer Tom Cuddy, Officer Claudio Camacho, Officer Jaime Adames and last row, Officer Jeff Sapienza and Capt. Scott McNamara. Missing from the picture is District B Councilor Estela Reyes, who also attended.

By Alberto Surís

On Saturday, May 24th, Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera called for a press conference to inform the citizenry about certain measures his office has been working on to improve the quality of life in our city.

Words from the Mayor:

As we work to make Lawrence safer we are starting by putting more feet on the street. We are adding 10 net new police officers to our total force. But also with the help of the chief and the command staff we are policing smarter.

Using information gathered at our monthly Compstat meetings and with information gathered from Lawrence City Councilors and neighborhood associations, we have put together a list of efforts that we will deploy all summer from neighborhood engagement in high crime areas to quality of life enforcement in known geographic hot spots, to noise ordinance enforcement.

Noise complaints are a symptom of a larger sense of lawlessness if people do not care that they are disturbing others with their music it is because they think the authorities don’t care or can’t do anything about it. Then it becomes a problem. This stops now. All residents and visitors of Lawrence will be held to the letter of the law in regards to our noise ordinances to ensure that our quality of life here in Lawrence is not at risk.

The noise car operation plays a key role in the Summer Street Crime Prevention Initiative that began last week with the following activities:

Targeted Neighborhood Engagement operations:

Like Tarbox School Neighborhood & Others —

600 Community Contacts, 2 warrant arrests.
30 vehicle stops. Building Neighborhood Associations.

Strategic Crime Spike Task Forces:

February Armed Robbery Taskforce – 42% drop in armed robberies
Added Community engagement & added patrols, and park & walks.

Hotspot Sweeps —

Focused on prostitution arrests and narcotics, violations, using local, state and federal law enforcement resources — Broadway Sweep netted 44 arrests

Nuisance Property Enforcement –