Milford Officials Consider Ways To Prevent Walnut Beach Chaos Again

MILFORD, CT — Milford will be making changes to Walnut Beach parking access in an effort to prevent another chaotic situation that occurred on Memorial Day.

Two officers were knocked down, and their body cameras were stolen as they tried to break up multiple fights at Walnut Beach on Memorial Day. Police have charged a mixture of adults and juveniles for incidents that day.

More than a dozen voiced concern at the most recent Board of Aldermen meeting about the beach situation or crime in general.

“What we need is to just be prepared,” Walnut Beach Association President Wendy Terenzio said. “We know this happens now in May and June, be prepared ahead of time, have all that presence ready to go in May and June.”

The event was pre-orchestrated and advertised through social media, Mayor Ben Blake said at a Board of Aldermen meeting.

“There was unruly behavior at Walnut Beach, it was not a staffing issue,” Blake said. “We had 10 police officers at Walnut Beach.”

The city will monitor social media and change Walnut Beach parking rules if officials detect another similar event being planned, Blake said. The main parking lot will be limited to those with a beach sticker. Others will have to park at kiosks outside the new parking perimeter that was recently installed.

The city will also try to enforce a single entry point for Walnut Beach, though people can still walk across the sandbar to get to the beach. Other popular Connecticut beaches like Jennings Beach in Fairfield have one main access point, Blake said.

“The majority of folks can be limited if the beach captains or the police department require that the beach be closed down because there is the pendency of an incident,” Blake said.

Personnel will also be stationed near the line of demarcation between Silver Sands State Park and Walnut Beach.

Board of Aldermen Minority Leader Anthony Giannattasio requested that Police Chief Keith Mello give the board an update at its next meeting.

“I feel like you're trying to do a lot of different things, but you're not addressing the issue of more police presence,” Giannattasio said to Blake.

Blake accused Giannattasio of trying to make the situation political, and said many of the public comment speakers who talked about the beach situation were members of the Republican Town Committee.