Lynn police take stock of summer

LYNN – Police officers often refer to summer as being their most active season of the year. As the summer of 2008 officially nears an end, the city’s police chief acknowledged Wednesday it might not be smooth sailing into autumn citing new crime statistics.”We still have some challenges ahead of us,” Police Chief John Suslak said.Lynn’s most recent crime statistics – released this week – show the city has a high number of homicides for this point in the year. As of Sept. 1, five homicides were reported compared to only two murders at the same time last year.”There are usually four or five a year,” Suslak said. “Historically, that’s just about what our average is, four or five homicides a year.”Police have also reported a 31 percent increase in motor vehicle thefts since last year.”Motor vehicle larcenies have probably jumped up the most this year. For several years ? we were going down pretty steadily on that. That’s an area of concern for us,” Suslak said.Another crime category with a notable jump is street robberies, which are up 20 percent compared to this time last year.In a monthly “Officers in Charge” meeting held at the police station Wednesday, officers spoke about pro-active ways to deal with various problems around the city. Many discussions centered on neighborhood quality-of-life issues, which often stem from gang, drugs and prostitution-related problems.Police said 278 arrests were made in the month of August. The majority of those were made in patrol sector No. 10, which is the downtown Lynn area. Patrol sector No. 8, which is the area between downtown and the Swampscott border, including the Highlands, had the second-highest amount of arrests.Suslak said he recently received a complaint that originated from City Councilor Richard Colucci about ongoing prostitution in the Union Street area.”I know [officers] have already been down there making some arrests,” he said.The chief said he is frustrated that some of the prostitutes are being arrested “over and over again.””It almost amazes me we’re able to do it,” Suslak said. “At some point I think the courts need to step up and make sure these people that we’re arresting time and time again are actually held for a while.”A policing approach recently implemented to attack neighborhood problems is to hold sergeants accountable for patrolling specific neighborhoods and addressing their issues.For example, a certain officer will focus solely on a problem section of Washington Street while another officer will focus specifically on the Commons. The problems can range from drug addicts near the Willow Street homeless shelter to drivers speeding on North Common Street.”They’re asked to work on it whether it be six months or a few years,” said Leonard DesMarais, captain of patrolmen. “This is going to be more of a long-term program.”Sgt. Edward Nardone, who is in charge of the department’s Gang Unit, says the use of outside law enforcement agencies have been a big help in tackling the gang problem this past summer, and hopes it will again in the near future.Lynn police used the assistance of the FBI, ATF and State Police to arrest suspected gang member Robert Valenti, 20, for firearms charges on Wednesday morning.”The Gang Unit anticipates the number of people taken into custody will continue to grow even while we do employ creative alternative methods to arrest,” Nardone said. “We try to create different ways to keep these kids off the street.”