MALDEN — The city’s three newly-sworn police officers combine military backgrounds and bilingual skills to serve and protect an increasingly diverse community.
Ayrton Borges, a Malden High School graduate and Marine Corps veteran, is fluent in Portuguese. Cory D’Entremont, also a Malden High graduate, is an Army veteran and an Eagle Scout. Patrick Kinnon of Malden and a Mystic Valley Regional Charter School graduate, served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Pennsylvania, a ballistic missile submarine out of Bangor Base in Washington state.
The trio attended the Northern Essex Community College Police Academy and begin field training before being assigned to full duty.
They will begin patrolling a city that posted, according to police statistics, a drop in a wide spectrum of crime last year in part, according to the city’s police chief, because of close relationships between residents and police.
Chief Kevin Molis told City Council members in April he is encouraged FBI-based National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) statistics showing crime categories dropped by some 16.9 percent in 2016 from 2015.
For instance there were 34,232 calls for service to the Malden Police Department in 2015 and 27,801 in 2016.
The largest one segment drop in what NIBRS calls Part B offenses, was nearly 53 percent. These crimes include such offenses as disorderly conduct, trespassing, liquor law violations and driving under the influence of liquor.
Overall, arrests also substantially dropped in Malden in 2016, nearly 33 percent, with 717 in 2016 compared to 1,066 in 2015.
Another statistic which is partially positive was a drop in drug overdoses reported in 2016 (122) from 2015 (126) as well as fewer fatal overdoses in 2016, eight, than in 2015, when there were 11. In the past two years there have major efforts locally, regionally and nationally to address drug addiction and results such as overdoses and fatalities.
