From The Police Chief PDF Print E-mail
Norwich Happenings
Written by Douglas A. Robinson   
WOW! Another year gone already! I hope everyone is ready for 2009. 2008 has been a busy year for the Norwich Police Department. We will have hosted 12 public “Police Forums” (one a month), which included one open house of the police station. The Norwich Police Department will continue hosting the forums the first Wednesday of every month at 6PM to discuss any issues about the police or town you would like, unless otherwise posted.

The Norwich Police Department is currently fully staffed with four full-time certified officers and one fulltime administrative assistant. Your officers are Officer Mike Scruggs, Officer Chuck Rataj, Officer Frank Schippert, myself and Administrative Assistant Judy Powell. Stop in anytime to look around, introduce yourself and just say “Hi.”

We have our MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) up and running in each of the marked cruisers and the officers have each received training in their use. Technology is an amazing thing. We are trying to keep up with the request for “Directed Patrols”—these are designated patrols in areas where we have received complaints. Any time we receive multiple complaints for any particular area we try to patrol that area more often. Hopefully you will be able to request those patrols by accessing a form from our website at www.norwichvtpolice.org. Take a look at it sometime. Keeping in mind that it is a work in progress, there are some very good resources linked to it.

Our 2nd Annual Lights For Visibility program was another great success. We handed out glow sticks to trickor- treaters throughout the month of October to keep them visible while they were out trick-or-treating. We handed out over 250 glow sticks.

The Norwich Police was given a grant to fund an officer to enforce motor vehicle and occupant safety laws. You may have noticed an extra officer on duty at times, working from the grant. Norwich police officers typically investigate 100-plus accidents per year. At the rate we are going now we may be seeing as much as a 20 percent decrease in the amount of accidents in Norwich. Thanks to everyone who has been driving safely and defensively, and following the traffic laws.

With the addition of the fire chief in the police department building, we were quickly running out of parking spaces. We have begun to expand our parking lot with the addition of approximately six to seven spaces and one designated handicapped space. The expanded lot now is gravel and we are hoping to have it paved next year.

As always please feel free to stop in to the police station anytime if you have any questions, concerns, suggestions or would just like to look around. Feel free to contact me or any of my officers at the station. You can always reach me at 649-1460 or e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Have a Happy and Safe Holiday Season.