Lack of cops hurts Saugus

SAUGUS – A weekend brawl at Roller World wasn’t, according to owner Jerry Breen, the melee described in police reports, but it served to further highlight the shortage of police manpower on the street.Breen said several groups from Boston attended Roller World Friday totaling over a hundred people, but at no time were they all fighting.But toward the end of the evening several fights did break out in the parking lot. Fearing that it could turn into a melee, Breen said the police were called and told to bring all available officers because they weren’t sure where the situation was headed.That call brought in police from Wakefield, Lynnfield, Revere and the State Police as well as Saugus, largely because Saugus doesn’t have the manpower at that time of night to handle an angry mob.Lt. Michael Annese said it is anything but easy to walk into a potential fray, when it has the prospect of exploding.”I was on the street for 20 years,” he said. “I know what it feels like to walk in to a situation with just your partner and wait for back up. No one understands that feeling when there are angry people all around you but another officer.”But that’s how it was Friday and again on Saturday for Saugus officers.With the department stretched as thin as it’s ever been, officers were kept busy running with more than one event calling for every officer available to hit the streets. For Saugus “every officer available” only amounts to seven at best and on a bad night, four officers.”Nine is your max, but usually you’ll have seven people plus a commanding officer. One of the seven (on duty) is a desk officer so now you’re down to six,” Annese explained. “The most you’ll have is probably six and one could be at lunch or if people are writing reports or booking suspects you could have as few as four.”Annese said neither seven nor four officers are an ideal situation when calls for a large-scale fight or a shooting come in, and the department had both last weekend.Officers lucked out when a fight in the parking lot of Tabu Ultra Lounge and Nightclub resulted in minor injuries and only involved two hotheads arguing.But earlier in the evening, officers were pulled in two different directions when calls came in simultaneously for incidents at Tabu and Oasis on the opposite end of Route 1 north. According to police reports, the call at Tabu reporting a vehicle being broken into went unheeded, with the alleged shooting outside Oasis taking precedent.Annese said weekend incidents only strengthen the department’s case for needing more officers, but he is not holding his breath waiting for it to happen. Chief James MacKay has already presented his budget to the Finance Committee and Annese isn’t sure when or even if he will be called back to defend it.”It’s nothing we haven’t been saying since 2003 or 2004,” Annese said. “We don’t have the manpower we should and I’m afraid it’s not going to change anytime soon.”