Rindge PD Update – Changes for the current COVID-19 guidelines

Due to the ongoing Federal guidelines relating to COVID-19, the front office will have limited access for the public to limit contact as has been suggested. We will post a sign on the door as to how we are handling public interactions.

During the normal business hours, the front door will be locked and the public is asked to use the silver intercom call box to speak to someone inside the PD. If there is no response, the blue call box can be used to call our dispatch center directly, 24/7. We are asking the community attempt to conduct business with us, including scheduling appointments for pistol permit pick-ups etc, via a phone call. The best line for 24/7 service will be our dispatch phone number: 603-355-2000 (Cheshire County Sheriff’s Office).

Below is a list of changes made:

• There is also now an online form for anyone wishing to make a NON-EMERGENCY report to us. This is found on our website and through this link.
• The DEA Drug Take-back Day has been cancelled. We are looking forward to hosting this in the Fall as we have done the past several years.
• We ask the public to respect the “social distancing” rule using the 6 foot recommended distance.
• If we respond to your house or business, please do not be offended if we conduct interaction outdoors or through doors/windows.

While we are in uncharted territory here, we are following all the recommended guidelines. Some of these decisions were also made at the recommendation of the town this morning and are effective immediately. Please call us as we will keep our normal staffing during this time. We will work with the public to address issues as they arise and have the appropriate PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to respond when necessary. We are preparing to offer the best support that we can, while abiding by best practices to limit exposure. Thank you all in advance ~ Chief Anair.

COVID-19 Map and Malware clarification

There have been reports of the AZORult trojan being hidden within a map for COVID-19 (which would show it’s spread of confirmed cases globally). ESRI has attempted to put out better information on what is happening between the John Hopkins University map they have on their website and the downladable map that contains the malware.

You can find the explanation about the two maps and how to protect yourself from the malware version on ESRI’s website. Scroll down their page for the visual difference between the online map and downloadable map (which contains the virus).

You can learn more about COVID-19 on the NH government website, at the CDC website and call 2-1-1 with any questions or concerns about surrounding the illness.

Rindge PD Data Portal

What is the Rindge PD Data Portal? We have made efforts to be transparent with our community and allow them the ability to see most of what it is we deal with as an agency. Why only most? There are investigations to be performed, victims that are protected and other sensitive information that is exempt by NH RSA 91-A standards (and 260:14, the Driver Privacy Act). Most of the data you will find in the data portal is just that, data. We put out the data in a visualization format that can make the understanding a little better to comprehend and provide some context of what the numbers are and what we are doing.

What better way to let people know about the events in there area than giving them the data to see for themselves? Maps, numbers, totals; they can all have meaning. We are looking to move towards a more proactive and evidence based approach to policing. As these changes arise, we will keep you, our community, apprised of what we are looking to do and why and what we have to support our decision to change or adapt or practices. We will also send out information on what some of these approaches are and how they can be a more effective and efficient use of our resources.

As the time permits, we look to increase the aesthetic of the visualizations that represent our data and hope that we can get it to tell the story of what goes on in our town.

You can usually find weekly updates to the data by the end of the work day on Mondays (except for holidays and vacations that interfere with regular weekly updates). If you have questions, please contact us here.

Nick, Records Manager

Not like on TV

Come on admit it. You all have that favorite TV show you love where the show starts, some major crime happens and within the hour (including commercials) the bad guy is caught prosecuted and in jail. It’s a satisfying ride, right? Justice served swiftly and fairly and in an hour or less. It is always amazing, they lift a fingerprint (every time) or get DNA they then take to some laptop, phone or tablet, upload it and the analysis magic happens and then BOOM – a match!! The next scene they are kicking in the door of that person and rifling through their belongings looking for evidence and taking them in for questioning. The police throw all sorts of evidence at them, there is the inevitable stare down between the good guy and bad guy and case closed! Such a thrilling episode…..

Well, then there is real life. What does real life for a small town NH police officer mean? Well for one, LOTS of paperwork. We respond, take the initial report look for evidence, take it back process it ourselves, document it, photograph it, seal it in evidence packaging, draw a report, then a property number then it goes to the one and only forensics lab in the State. The lab is located in Concord with specific hours, and you can’t just go at any time since an appointment to drop your evidence off is needed. Then, it gets prioritized in several different categories. Was it property crime? Is there a known suspect? Are there charges or a court date pending? – Depending on the answer, your evidence may end up at the bottom of the stack. Most of the time, this is the case. Now, the waiting game begins. It could be months and sometimes years before you have any results. But then still, now what?

The officer has a lot more paperwork to do. Depending on the severity of the case, we could draft a warrant and try to locate the person or it goes to the County Attorney Office where the case is looked at to see if it is deemed a “prosecutable” case. If so, then a date for Grand Jury is set. They only meet once a month and you are one of 23 towns that also only has the one date a month to go in front of the Grand Jury. If you are lucky, then the case is heard within 3 months of the completed case being sent up. Now, during that time, the victim in the case gets more and more frustrated and questions arise: What is going on? How come there has not been an arrest? Are you even taking my case seriously? Are your officers properly trained?

TV shows such as CSI, NCIS, The Closer are all good TV shows, but that is just it; it’s a show. It’s entertainment. Even more “real time” shows such as Live PD do not show the behind the scenes parts such as reports and paperwork. This does not attract potential watchers as we can all watch most of our own co-workers doing paperwork. It is not a ratings driver is it?

I wanted to put out this bit of “insider information” so that the public was aware of the hurdles and issues that arise when attempting to investigate and work a case. It is frustrating for our victims and for our community and hopefully this insight provides a little more understanding as to the process we have to follow while conducting our investigations.

Tire Fires

With the recent events that occurred Friday night, 1/24/2020, at North of the Boarder (NOTB) the PD has been in full investigative mode. This means that all officers are working on leads, taking phone calls, emails and working every tip that comes in. The community has thrown their support (rightfully so) around the store owners who are residents, tax payers and a part of our community. As I was at home and getting alerts of two tire fires that happened in town, one early Sunday morning at around 1:32 am and the other at 10:38 pm, I am brought to the realization of how bothered I am by these continued events.

Here, we have a major incident in town and all of the department resources going toward solving this but now we have to divert services to deal with a completely senseless act. Services of BOTH the police and fire are taken to opposite ends of town causing unnecessary response. Now there will also be a fee associated with repair work to the road (as the heat of the fire caused damage) that will undoubtedly end up in tax dollar revenue of some kind. At what point does this “harmless” act become something more then what it is portrayed as? It is always nothing, until it is…

In the year of 2019 we responded to 14 tire fires throughout the town. In the last few years, we have had two specific incidents where people have sustained damage to their vehicle because of these tire fires. Imagine, your family is traveling home with your young child sleeping in the back seat. You see something in the road, but it is dark (as almost every tire fire is after dark) you are trying to see what it is – animal, vehicle – what is it? You realize it is debris of some sort, you jam on the brakes and try to avoid it but strike it causing damage to your car. You get out and call for help and when the dispatcher asks what you struck in the road, you realize it was a pile of tires stacked in the middle of the travel lane in the road.

How have we as a community gotten to the point where this is considered acceptable behavior? Take these incidents at their core for what they are…. Arson.

ar·son/ˈärs(ə)n/Learn to pronouncenoun

1. the criminal act of deliberately setting fire to property.”police are treating the fire as arson”

Each time one of these event are done you have someone committing an arson. Any time damage to the road is done, now you have another criminal act – Vandalism

van·dal·ism/ˈvandlˌizəm/Learn to pronouncenoun

1. action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.”an act of mindless vandalism

So at what point does it come to an end? When someone loses a life over them? Either the arsonist trying to light the fire and it causes an explosion of the various chemicals used to ignite the fire? Is it the innocent passerby that is reporting it just as the fuels finally ignite and they are injured? One life is too great of a cost for something so senseless, and too many lives have been lost in town due to senseless actions that have happened in town over the years.

2019 Annual Town Report

2019 Annual Report

2019 has been a busy but promising year for the Rindge Police Department.  Experiencing continued staff turnover, and having an officer in either an academy or field training ended in October and we are at full staff for the first time in 6 years!  Officer Brianna Rogers filled our last full time position.  With that being said, the first 3 quarters of the year were extremely busy and having us being short staffed meant that officers stepped up to ensure shift coverage and thus took time away from their families and friends to be here to cover the town. 

What does full staffing mean to us?  We now have more shifts with a second officer on.  By re-evaluating the schedule, we were able to make some new creative shifts to cover our busier times allowing us to better handle our community’s demand on our services.  It also means that officers will now have a more even case flow to allow them less time behind the desk.  

In continued efforts to include much of our data including calls for service (CFS), arrests, cases and charges, case status, motor vehicle stops (MVS) and accidents have all been published on our web page, https://rindgepolice.com/.  This is an ongoing vision of mine and we will continue to work on this flow of data and provide as much knowledge as possible to the volume and types of calls we are responding to.  I believe in providing statistics, as an agency, about what we are responding to on a regular basis.  We are working on keeping the data as conscience and robust as we can but are limited by the software that we currently use for our records.  We have explored other programs and are actively seeking funding for this type of conversion, however, this will likely be a long term plan but remains a priority.    

Both the drug and sharps drop box are still being utilized on a regular basis here at the PD which shows the continuing need for this.  I am glad to see that other agencies have taken this initiative on as well and are making these boxes available to the public.  Our online exchange zone is also still doing well and is still being utilized.  It is nice to see that the projects from last year are still having a positive impact and making for a better community.

We continue to have cases that receive local media attention and we continue to work in cooperation with other jurisdictions including state and federal agencies.  Rindge was commended by other agencies for the ease of cooperation and transition in joint cases.  It is a good feeling to know that all the hard work of this agency shows through inter agency calls. 

	2017	2018	2019
Calls for Service	3287	3482	4011
Misdemeanor Offenses	249	256	230
Felony Offenses	62	100	67
Misdemeanor Arrests	62	75	135
Felony Arrests	11	14	11
Juvenile Arrests	4	5	0
DWI Arrests	14	12	18
Motor Vehicle Stops	1073	1280	1486
MVS Warnings	981	1175	1355
MVS Summons	92	105	246
Vehicle Accidents	115	121	108
MVA Fatalities	1	0	0
Animal Control	329	305	270

Statistically, our calls for service significantly increased from 2018, seeing a large increase in total arrests from 129 to 205.  We continue to see a significant increase in violence, domestic incidents, forgery and property damage.  The increases has remained steady across the board in all lines and have kept the department very busy.  We took some initiatives in traffic enforcement this year to include a “Saturation Patrol” which was conducted with NH State Police.  While there was some misunderstanding in this, this type of patrol is done in high volume traffic areas to raise awareness to a particular problem.  Both State Police and the Rindge Police Department felt this was an effective way to assist in raising awareness to the traffic violations with volume in that area.  We also are awarded grants from the NH Office of Highway Safety based on our data and request.  These grants helped by putting an extra patrol car designated specifically for traffic enforcement.  We were able to add several 4 hour patrols throughout the year where the officer was specifically assigned to traffic enforcement. 

It has been a busy year here at the Rindge Police Department.  I look forward to continuing to serve the residents of Rindge by continuing to work within the community and addressing the ongoing needs through community outreach and actively participating in community events.  We will be looking to add newsletters via email, proactive & community policing as well as opening dialogs through meetings, speaking engagements and blogs as needed.  I would like to speak for both myself and the staff to say thank you for your continued support and kindness over the last year.  It truly means a lot to all of us to have your continued support.

Respectfully submitted,

Daniel J Anair

Chief of Police       

www.rindgepolice.com