Revere police chief, council debate ways to combat crime

REVERE – Chief of Police Terrence K. Reardon appeared before the City Council Monday night for a lengthy and at times heated discussion about the crime occurring in the Revere Street area.A motion to get the chief to appear occurred at last week?s meeting and was presented by Ward 3 City Councilor Arthur Guinasso. “I rate this a priority over education, over the fire department, over everything,” Guinasso said. “If we don?t have public safety kids can?t go to school and people can?t go shopping if they don?t feel safe.”Guinasso stated that a number of murders, rapes and house burglaries have occurred on the troubled street. He also stated that a number of Revere citizens have told him personally that they no longer feel safe in the city anymore. “If people can?t travel the streets, there is something wrong with us if we don?t bring it to the forefront,” he said. “After 3 p.m. the havoc in our community starts to begin. Sometimes I am disheartened when I drive down Revere Street. There are more drugs sold there than they have in CVS.”While Reardon admitted there was a problem, he pointed out that a bigger issue was the lack of staff the police department is working with. Currently, there is a budget for 86 police officers. There are 83 on staff and only 76 of them are working. “Since 2000 our staffing has gone down 30 percent and Revere?s population has gone up 10 percent,” Reardon said. “Seventy-six police officers are doing the work for 100 police officers.”Councilor at large and mayoral candidate Daniel Rizzo suggested that while the police department works on curtailing large-scale drug dealers and criminals, that they should also focus on the smaller ones as well. “It seems to me that the drug unit is always going after the big fish,” Rizzo said. “Something should be done to deal with the small-time drug dealers and users.”Reardon acknowledged that the police force does make a priority of bringing down the more notorious criminals. “You can not do it willy-nilly,” Reardon said. “We attempt to get indictments. We know if we arrest these people they will be on the streets in a couple of hours.”Revere Police focuses most of its energy on indicting criminals dealing with narcotics. “We have been very successful with that and have brought down several important people,” the chief said. “We go where we are going to get the most bang for our buck.”Another argument was the drug task force does not spend enough time in Revere. Ward 6 Councilor Charles Patch believes the task force spends a majority of their time in Chelsea and/or East Boston chasing criminals. “The priority is to keep Revere safe,” Patch said. “I would say 80 percent of the time they are outside of Revere.”This statement was a bone of contention for the chief. “That is absolutely not true,” he said.Some city councilors stated that there was a system in place that has to be followed. “We are under the constraints of the Constitution,” City Councilor at large Robert Haas said. “Warrants are not issued on when maybe something happened or maybe it didn?t.”Ward 1 Councilor Richard Penta suggested that the city councilors send letters to known drug dealers in the community to intimidate them. “Send them a letter saying we know you are selling drugs and we know it and we are watching you,” Penta said. “Forget the Constitution. Let them know that we know they are selling drugs.”Others want to contact Gov. Deval Patrick. “We are here beating up the chief where we need to supply him,” said George Rotondo, a councilor at large and another mayoral hopeful. “We need to get the governor to bring more money to Revere so this man can do his job.”The chief said it all comes back to the amount of police officers available. “The problem is we don?t have enough officers. Any way you shake it, that?s the way it is,” Reardon said. “I get frustrated but you have to deal with the cards you are dealt.”While the chief said a larger police presence may help deter crime in areas of Revere and