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By Michael Bielawski
The new chief’s report for Burlington is out and it highlights a concerning trend involving the workload that each sworn officer must undertake while policing in the Queen City.
The graph is labeled incidents vs. headcounts and an upward trend is noted starting in 2020 – when the City Council voted to defund via attrition the police department by about 30% – to today. The report states, “It gives a very conservative picture of the tremendous workload increase since July 2020, per officer—the trend has doubled.”
The data is also concerning when the incident volume is compared with the total BPD headcount. It states, “But comparing total incidents to total officers underestimates the burden on patrol. The majority ( >75%) of incidents are answered by non-supervisory patrol officers.”
It continues that this data does not account for “incidents answered at the airport, by detectives, by supervisors, or by CSOs and CSLs.” It notes that CSOs (unarmed Community Service Officers) were used as the primary responding officer for 16% of all incidents for 2022, as well as 12% in 2023, and 13% so far for 2024.
It concludes, “Therefore the true burden on sworn patrol officers lies somewhere between the red and the blue. It’s still staggering; the trendline shows a 200% increase.”
Depleted staff forcing reassignments
While 68 officers are considered on staff, only 58 of them are currently available for assignments. Reasons for staffed officers being unavailable can include training, personal issues, injury, and more. This forces the department to take officers away from special assignments such as drug offenses and domestic violence.
The report notes, “Previously there were three special assignments, but patrol deficits and summer call volume have necessitated that two—the Domestic Violence Prevention Officer (DVPO) and the temporary Narcotics Officer—be deployed on patrol. It is expected those officers will return to their special assignments in October.”
Overall incidents at new high
The overall number of incidents as of Aug. 15 of this year compared with the same point in past years is at a new high. The previous high was 2023 when 18,573 incidents were reported as of mid-August. That number for this year is up 1%, to 18,797 incidents. Looking further back, in 2019 there were 17,783 incidents by this date.
Some concerning trends include overdose incidents are at a high of 353 by mid-August. Last year there had been 288, and in 2022 there had been 121. Every year for the past five years that has been trending upward, in 2019 there were only 30 such incidents by this point in the year.
Aggravated assaults are another category that is generally trending upward. There have been 45 this year, compared with 28 last year. In 2022 there were 46 incidents by mid-August.
Help on the way, mayor supports
Four new sworn officers were added to the BPD recently, as well as three new dispatchers and other positions. They were formally added to the staff on Aug. 1. It was noted that Mayor Mulvaney-Stanek “attended and offered welcoming remarks to these new members of the team.”
Low morale?
According to a study by Policing: a Journal of Policy and Practice, at the national level the low staffing levels are creating challenges for departments that are further exasperating the remaining officers.
Their report states, “Policing worldwide is facing a staffing and retention crisis. If the staffing exodus continues, communities will be left with too few police and large cohorts of inexperienced new recruits on the job.”
It continues that 2,669 officers responded to their survey regarding what the biggest challenges are facing policing these days.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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This is what happens when you keep voting in PROGRESSIVES. I guess Vermonters LOVE high taxes, no police, and ‘crowds’ because you know you can’t use the word ‘gangs’ now. Hire more DEI Social Workers!! CHANGE is needed in VT, EBT/Medicaid for these single parents need to be required to show their rent leases because A LOT of them are scamming the tax payers, but VT will never do it. They are all about TAXING the ppl and giving it all to others.
Burlington is reaping what they sowed .
A majority of Burlington voters have brought this situation upon themselves and their fair city. They have done the ideologically-popular defund thing and at the same time have rolled out the welcome mat to the regional and even nationwide vagrant community which tends to have a higher percentage of lawbreakers and people with a general lack of respect for their fellow humans. Voters in Burlington had the opportunity to elect a decent mayor with Joan Shannon, and also have had a say in keeping that pathetic excuse for a State’s Attorney in office. The violent street crime, the aggressive panhandling, the harassment of outdoor diners, the car break-ins and thefts, the graffiti and vandalism, the loss of essential businesses due to shoplifting losses, the vagrants sleeping in doorways, the littered bloody syringes, the tent cities in public spaces, the parking garages that most decent folks are afraid to use…you own it. What a pitiful shame to see that all happen to a once great Vermont city, all in the name of political and ideological fashionability.
Go WOKE go broke. The city on Lake Champlain is broke, as in broken. It must be that liberals do not have access to real news. All across America liberal cities are turning into dystopian, crime ridden, lawless landscapes. The sanctuary utopias have been invaded by illegal aliens and services for citizens have been diverted to people who shouldn’t even be here. Those cities violate federal laws and harbor criminals, gang members, drug dealers and those with diseases that the USA has irradicated are being reintroduced into our country. Countless Americans have been injured, raped and murdered.
Our real enemies are already here. Those are the people who have refused to see what their ideology has forced onto our states and the country. This diversity, Woke, un-American ideological voting block has caused all of this by people devoid of critical thinking who vote to feel good about themselves and to prove to their liberal circle of friends how virtuous they are. These are the educated fools and the useful idiots who would destroy our cities and our country out of stubbornness and lack of forethought as to what they have done.
We are living in the idiot apocalypse and the light at the end of the tunnel is dim. How does a country as great as America has been die at the hands of a minority of liberals and a corrupt media? We allow it to happen, that’s how. This is a disease of ignorance, a cult following for a utopia that will never exist. The good and patriotic people of Vermont and America need to get off their asses, register to vote red and put this diseased ideology back in the box it came from to never let it out again. I grew up in America, WE The People own this country, and we need to take it back from all the crazies that have brought this to our doorsteps. That includes right here under our Golden Doom which is supposed to belong to the people of Vermont not a collection of carpetbaggers here from out of state masquerading as our representatives to control every aspect of our lives and to confiscate every dollar we earn while they represent the lobbyists who fund their campaigns. Wake to hell up Burlington and Vermont voters. All of this has been caused by you, not Trump or republicans or conservatives who have not been in power for decades in Vermont. It’s how you vote and it all belongs to you!
Burlington is the crime cesspool that it has become, due to the progressive so-called
” leadership ” from their DEI Mayor and her feckless gaggle of fools the city council.
all property and store owners should stop paying their taxes, due to the lack of safety and security the city is not safe, all the crime, drugs, and homelessness on every corner, Oh wait I almost forgot about the increased shootings……….. pretty pathetic.
So the gaggle of fools ” city council ” wanted to de-fund and reduce the head for the police department, how’s that working out, maybe the council members should be doing foot patrol to pick up the slack……. No, they are progressives who probably still sleep with the lights on………….. Burlington, you voted these clowns in, you get what you sow !!!
But Burlington has some nice bike lanes, that’s their woke priority, but the Hell with its daily citizens or businesses on and around Church Street, what an appalling display of leadership or lack thereof !!
The last time i went to a store in St. Albans one orange was priced at one dollar, a husked ear of corn one dollar, a green pepper one dollar, one tomato was seventy five cents, a pound of squash over two dollars. Now which political party is causing this problem? Remember the name pickpocketpowell. Nobody elected this federal reserve banker. The crime problem is going to get worse.///