One hundred newly sworn-in Boston Police officers began their assignments in districts across the city last Monday (Sept. 8) including at Area C-11 and Area B-3, the two largest districts covering Dorchester and Mattapan. Police commanders say the reinforcements are a welcome addition to a street force that has been slimmed down by retirements and promotions in recent months.
The bulking up coincides with Mayor Wu’s promise that a majority of the new officers would be assigned to address the many issues at Mass. and Cass.
The new officers graduated from the academy on Aug. 22, with women making up almost 30 percent of the class.
At C-11’s Gibson Street stationhouse, Capt. Steve Sweeney noted during a public meeting last week that 19 of the new officers reported to the station that Monday. A similar number have been posted to the B-3 station on Blue Hill Avenue, according to a BPD spokesperson.
C-11’s new officers will work with mentor officers for several months and will also be assigned to Sgt. Shawn Harris’s Community Impact Team (CIT), where they will focus on quality-of-life issues and other matters prioritized by the district captain. The last CIT team focused on shoplifting, coordinating “stings” with veteran officers that helped to reduce the numbers of incidents over the past two months.
Sweeney said the new officers on the CIT team will be visiting places like McConnell Park, where calls for illicit drug use and late night gatherings have been a problem. The unit often travels in a new four-wheeler style “Gator” vehicle that can also travel off-road.
While crime statistics in C-11 territory are down in almost every category, several troubling incidents recently – including an attempted carjacking and shooting in Savin Hill – have put residents on edge.
In another, more recent incident, woman returning home from work was allegedly carjacked at gunpoint by a group of teenagers on Shepton Street in Dorchester early on Saturday morning, according to a BPD report reviewed by The Reporter.
In B-3, according to crime statistics published on Aug. 24, the numbers are up by 11 percent over last year for Part One crime – homicides, aggravated assaults, and auto theft. Murders have risen from three to six compared to last year, and aggravated assaults (both domestic and non-domestic) are up substantially.
Beyond those numbers, the district had to juggle a string of summer events at Franklin Park and on Blue Hill Avenue – including the BAA Half-Marathon, the Caribbean Carnival, and the growing popularity of the Dominican Festival.
B-3 also has a CIT team, but a police spokesperson there said that this class of recruits would be focusing on walking beats and patrol cars during their training, focusing on areas where the data show a need, or where community feedback and calls for service document more police presence.
“They will do those things with a particular focus in the areas like Talbot Avenue and Columbia Road,” said the spokesperson. “The goal is visibility and walking and talking with people and enforcement.”
The enhanced deployments are welcome news, too, to residents like Shonnelia Stewart, herself a BPD officer who greeted the recruits as they ran up Blue Hill Avenue in formation on Sept. 5, part of a BPD tradition for new academy graduates. She joined an enthusiastic group of residents who had gathered in front of the Mattapan BPL branch to cheer on the newly badged officers.
One of them is Stewart’s younger brother, whom she recruited over family dinners and sibling conversations. That sort of effort, police officials said, has been championed within the ranks with encouragement from Commissioner Michael Cox and the mayor.
“It feels good honestly – to support him,” she said having just arrived after working a shift at the South End (D-4) Police Station. “I’ve been on two years and I’m the oldest, so I tried to influence him in that direction.”
Stewart said she is confident her brother and the other recruits will find success.
“He was a US Marine and so he was already on this kind of pathway,” she said. “I told him that instead of staying on a job where he wasn’t making much money, he should come on the job and eventually he did.”
Others who gathered to support the recruits on Blue Hill Avenue during the “cadet run” included a group from the Mildred Avenue Senior Drop-In program. They came with signs and American flags flying, showing their support for “Class 65-25.”
“They’re needed because there is a lot of activity going on,” said Barbara Crichlow, a member of the senior group and leader of the West Seldon Street and Vicinity Neighborhood Association.
A police spokesperson said another, smaller class of recruits is scheduled to graduate as officers in the coming months. Additionally, a Civil Service policing test will be given this fall for a new round of recruits to enter the academy likely at the beginning of next year.
The spokesperson added that recruits in the Academy now have access to child-care and other considerations to make things “more supportive” as some have had trouble balancing life and the academic and physical rigors of the eight months of Academy training.
