Report: Middle Police Attained Goals in ’14

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township Police Department recently published its 2014 annual report. The 42-page document, available to the public from the township or department’s website, http://middlepd.org listed under Reports, details all accomplishments of the 48-officer department.
Highlights:
• Efforts to attain full (48) staffing, which became reality after the January 2015 graduation of two recruits from Cape May County Police Academy.
• Public Advocate Program in Municipal Court, the second in the state, to assist drug offenders in Municipal Court to stem their continued use of illegal drugs.
• DDACTS (Data Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic Safety) continued to show solid results with a reduction in crime from 2012.
• Partnership with Cape Assist to develop a diversion program focusing on younger juvenile offenders.
• Major Crimes Unit made progress in two areas: completed the application process for Second Hand Merchants to register and track sales after Township Committee approved an ordinance earlier in the year.
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children approved a cold case review of the Mark Himebaugh missing person case for February 2015. As a result, Detective Allan McClure was assigned full time in August to prepare that case file for review with Records Division assistance.
As the battle against heroin continued, the department’s Special Services Unit and Major Crimes Unit undertook a critical role in Operation Whitehouse led by the County Prosecutors Office in partnership with federal agencies to target heroin dealers in the region. That action resulted in a “significant amount” of heroin being seized from local streets.
Officers were trained in the use of Narcan to aid individuals who had overdosed with heroin. As a result, four individuals were revived during the year.
Overall, the violent crime rate was reduced by 25 percent, 46 offenses in 2014 compared 62 in 2013.
However, non-violent crime increased slightly, 5 percent, to 631 offenses in the year compared to 598 in the prior year. The report noted, “We view this as a positive, because it is basically flat after a significant decrease of 30 percent in non-violent crime in 2013. We launched our DDACTS initiative Jan. 1, 2013 and saw a 25 percent reduction in Part 1 offenses and a 2.6 percent decrease in crashes in the DDACT Zone. In 2014 we saw an 18 percent increase from 2013, but still below the pre-DDACTS year of 2012 that we used a baseline to measure our effectiveness.”
Handling calls into the department are nine full-time telecommunication operators, two assigned to each of the four patrol squads. In 2014, they handled 41,404 calls for service and 11,788 911 calls. The number of calls was down from the prior year when there were 41,509 calls for service and 12,323 911 calls.
On average there were 32.2 911 calls daily in 2014 and 33.8 in 2013.
Under “Internal affairs,” the report lists one employee suspended for eight days for failure to perform duties. In 2014 there were 36 Internal Affairs investigations conducted; and there were 33 cases that reached conclusion.
While the department does not maintain its own SWAT team, there are four members from the department on the Regional SWAT Team. Through the year, they were called on 21 assignments for the Mainland division, while there were a total 47 calls for the county team.
For underwater details, the department has a fully operational, certified marine search and recovery dive team.
The department maintains two vessels: one a Carolina Skiff center console boat, the other is an aluminum johnboat vessel. The team has seven certified divers with a full complement of equipment. It had 14 training sessions in 2014.
For hostage situations, the department has four officers assigned to the County Hostage Negotiation Team. They are available to respond to any incident within Middle Township or anywhere within the county to assist. The team trains on a regular basis and is often called out in conjunction with the SWAT team.
Looking into the Future
One of the department’s goals deemed “most important” for 2015 is to upgrade the radio system.
A new radio system was built in December 2004 that never worked properly. In the spring of 2010, a number of improvements were made that did not solve the problems. A number of parts for the system are no longer supported and recent repairs required parts to be purchased from second hand dealers through E-Bay.
Two possible solutions were researched: 1. DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) Simulcast System through Hytera 2. Joining the statewide 700 MHz radio system.
The department is testing use of body cameras by officers in the field. It is important to note that body cameras will not provide all the answers in an investigation and is not a substitute for a thorough and complete investigation. “They may be a useful tool at the end of the day and most likely will, but it is important that the public, press and community activists understand limitations,” the report states.
Increase Class II special officers to seven from five. Those two additional Class II officers will increase police presence in the DDACT Zone of Rio Grande and on Route 47 in the targeted enforcement areas between milepost 5 and 8 and 12 and 16.
A small number of officers began carrying Tasers while on patrol in 2014. The department plans to expand that number in 2015 to a total of 12 officers, three patrol officers per shift. The department proposed an increase in its budget request for 2015 to accommodate the $30 each cost of cartridges needed for training.