Georgetown police report shows staffing gains and steady incident counts; residents warn of service strain

Chief of Police Ralph Holm told the Georgetown Town Council on May 26 that the department has added patrol capacity as four officers completed field training and a recruit, John Berdell, is nearing the end of academy training.

Holm presented incident data for March 16–May 25, reporting "a total of 1,633 incidents" and 1,933 calls for service as of May 25. He said the department recorded zero robberies in the period, "142 assaults with 50 arrest[s]," 13 burglaries with three arrests, and 79 fugitive apprehensions (mostly failures to appear). The report also listed 117 crashes, 27 hit-and-runs, 18 personal-injury collisions and "22 DUIs in just over a two-month period," he said.

The chief described how new officers move from field training to solo patrol and named the four recently released from FTO: Alec Bar, Keshan Mansfield, Dominic Redshaw and Payton Rose. He said the recruit John Berdell is in his 11th week and is expected to move into FTO after completion of early training milestones.

Council members asked whether code-enforcement statistics could be combined with the police report. Holm said he would add the code-enforcement numbers to his report and noted that code enforcement provides weekly figures to the town manager.

During public comment that followed, multiple residents framed public-safety concerns around homelessness and repeated emergency responses. Former officer Mark Rogers told the council that on two-officer shifts officers can be tied up ‘‘dealing with nothing but homeless,’’ limiting responses to other calls. Adam Machowski said the town’s emergency services were increasingly strained by repeated overdose calls and urged the council to consider the operational impact on taxed services.

The council took no formal action on policing policy at the meeting; the police chief’s report was informational. The meeting adjourned after public comment.