Shawangunk reports a reduction in crime

By Ted Remsnyder
Posted 2/13/19

The Town of Shawangunk experienced a small, but noticeable, drop in year-to-year crime numbers in 2018, according to statistics provided by Shawangunk Chief of Police Gerald Marlatt. The agency head …

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Shawangunk reports a reduction in crime

Posted

The Town of Shawangunk experienced a small, but noticeable, drop in year-to-year crime numbers in 2018, according to statistics provided by Shawangunk Chief of Police Gerald Marlatt. The agency head delivered the figures to the Town Board during his monthly report during the council’s Feb. 7 session, and the stats show that the police department had 2,925 calls for service in 2018, down from 3,354 calls in 2017.

Arrests were down slightly from 133 to 128 year-to-year, while 379 tickets were issued by the department in 2018, down from 382 in the prior year. Traffic accidents in the town had the biggest drop, from 202 in 2017 down to 159 last year. “That either means that the roads are safer or people are being more cautious,” Marlatt said during his presentation. “Or it was a good hunting season and there are less deer out there.”

Town Supervisor John Valk said the decreases could be partly attributed to staff turnover in the police department last year. “A lot of it may be that we had a lot of staffing changes through 2018,” Valk said. “The new officers were getting their feet wet, getting to know the town and knowing the people. I think, especially motor vehicle violations, we’ll see those go up. It’s been a lot of on-the-job training this last year with the new officers. So I think we’ll see that stabilize a little bit.”

The police chief said the numbers were positive, but also noted that the department must remain vigilant in cataloging all calls that come in to the department. “A decrease in calls for service is a good thing, for the most part,” Marlatt told the board. “The difference could be a lot of things. A lack of supervision on the day, the guys aren’t putting the tedious calls in that they get. Somebody stops in and takes an hour of their time inquiring about a civil matter and they help them out, then just don’t put a blotter entry in. Anytime that we get word that somebody had assisted somebody and didn’t document it, we get on them to document, document, document. Even if it seems insignificant, it still needs to be made a matter of record in case it turns into something later on, or these days a majority of our cases get FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests.”

Marlatt said that a good percentage of the calls for service the department gets are related to domestic incidents, and those type calls are particularly dangerous for responding officers. “Those are the most unstable and most unknown, because you could walk into anything,” he told the board.

The police department is set to install a one-hour parking sign outside of My Father Sam’s Barber Shop on Wallkill Avenue in order to give the shop’s customers a better opportunity to find parking outside the local business. The one-hour parking will be in effect from Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the street outside the store.