Concord Public Safety Group Recommends Installing Lights Under I-393

CONCORD, NH — At the urging of a city hotelier and developer, the city’s public safety committee voted to recommend the Concord City Council install better lighting underneath the Interstate 393 bridge and Constitution Avenue.

Steve Duprey made the request to the council earlier this month after reading a post on Patch about a homeless man having his finger sliced during an assault incident under the bridge near The Friendly Kitchen, the city’s soup kitchen. Another man was also injured during the incident, reporting facial injuries.

Duprey, who owns the Courtyard by Marriot Hotel and Grappone Conference Center on Constitution Avenue, wrote an email to City Manager Tom Aspell saying since the hotel opened, there have been several problems in that area, including at least one sexual assault. People do not feel safe in the area, he noted.

According to posts on Patch, the chaos under the bridge also included overdose deaths, threats, assaults, and other crimes, including fires.

The meeting of the safety board to consider the matter on Oct. 24 quickly diverged from the lighting issue to an overall explosion of criminal activity occurring in the dozens of homeless camps around the city.

Concord Police Chief Bradley Osgood said there have been a lot of problems along the railroad tracks in the city. The request would help — any time an area becomes more well-lit, it can reduce criminal activity. For those reasons, he said, he would support it.

But the bigger issue is the expansive encampments across the city, “some of them quite large,” that have migrated everywhere. There are close to three dozen camps around the city, many on private property.

Amanda Grady Sexton, the chairwoman of the board, and an at-large city councilor, asked police personnel to explain some of the issues because it seemed like a different crowd of homeless who had made their way to the city. She also asked about what connection The Friendly Kitchen had to the issues under I-393 and the state of homelessness, in general, in the city.

Deputy Chief Steven Smagula said there were around 150 “chronically homeless” in the city, although a complete “point-in-time” audit of everyone had not been performed. Often, the campers move from one area to another, making the tracking of campers “a challenge for the police department to do,” he said. Officers do share a fair amount of information to keep track of what is going on.

Smagula said the overwhelming complaint right now was criminal trespassing since many of the homeless people were camping on private property. When they are removed, they leave “a wake of trash” behind that needs to get cleaned up, he said. None of the sites have porta-potties, so a simple clearing or cleanup was challenging. The level of cleanup makes some of the sites equal to hazardous waste sites — and the cost of cleanup becomes the burden of the private landowner or the city and its taxpayers. Some cleanups can cost as much as tens of thousands of dollars per day.

Some of the more elaborate camps, Smagula said, have been found to have their own metal and construction shops. Police have also found piles of stolen items — with officers spending countless hours to get the stolen items back to their rightful owners, he said. Some businesses, especially the larger ones, refused to move forward on charges, preferring to write off the stolen property at a loss, Smagula added. With others, their inventory was so poor, they do not know the item was stolen in the first place, he said.

His comments did not address open drug use and other issues going on, too, he said.

Lt. Barrett Moulton added “aggressive panhandling” — with homeless people following others to cars, had become worrisome and potentially dangerous. One person reported a computer stolen off the desk of their office after a homeless person entered and swiped it, he said. Moulton said most of the camps are around 10 or so people in size. Some, too, are smaller and more spread out.

Osgood said, at one camp, police found it had its own Narcan station — with lookout towers, surveillance cameras, and booby traps, too.

Even more concerning, he said, was the amount of trash left behind and what was often in that trash, including empty propane tanks. Some of those tanks have caused explosions and fires at the camps.

Concord Fire Chief John Chisholm said the department’s employees were concerned about several safety issues, including needles that are left behind on trails to the camps as well as the difficult nature of some of the terrain and inability to reach the camps.

Officials discussed new encampments that have recently sprung up along Route 106. Businesses up and down the highway have reported thousands of dollars in thefts, Ward 9 City Councilor Candace Bouchard said.

Moulton, too, noted catalytic converters were being stolen from vehicles while copper wire and other items were being stolen from buildings.

Officer safety was also discussed. Smagula said a sergeant recently fell during a foot pursuit and injured their back; another chase led to an officer with a broken shoulder. Some of the campers, he noted, had built their own structures that moved beyond tents but small buildings. This also did not address the debris, people’s belongings, weapons, needles, and “a whole host of issues” as officers attempted to make arrests and deal with crimes while navigating their way through the wooden areas where most of the camps were located. Smagula said officers have also been spat at, including in the mouth, which requires biohazard treatment at hospitals.

“Those are lingering issues the officers have to deal with,” he said, including treatment and tests. “It’s on their minds a lot.”

Concord Mayor Jim Bouley agreed that it felt there was “a very different crowd” of homeless people now in the city — with many mom-and-pop businesses bearing the brunt of the burden of the criminal activity. He pointed to a massive camp at Locke Road where the campers had a chop shop on city conservation land. The estimated cleanup cost was around $40,000 — money the Conservation Commission did not have.

Grady Sexton asked if members thought the committee should be doing more work around the issue beyond just recommending lighting for the I-393 bridge.

Bouley said it might be time to get public safety, human services, advocates, and others into a room to deal with what the future had in store for the city. He pointed to the end of federal funding for hotel stipends for some of the homeless, which would be leading to “an explosion we have never experienced before” in Concord when those subsidies end later this year.

One public member of the board said he supported the lighting, but it was not just about this one location but others, too. He said an overflow parking lot nearby was never lit. Many other private individuals and businesses are also not providing proper lighting for their properties.

Osgood agreed to make a presentation to the council. It will include images from some of the camps and as much demographic information as possible. But he also said some of the societal dynamics inside the camps were quite striking. Some campers were taking advantage of other campers — to the point of calling themselves “leaders” or “mayors” of the camps.

Deputy Police Chief John Thomas said the department had confirmed labor and human trafficking issues at some of the city’s homeless camps.

After discussing potential costs and other issues, the board unanimously agreed to recommend that the city spend money to add lighting to the area underneath the I-393 bridge.

Got a news tip? Send it to tony.schinella@patch.com. View videos on Tony Schinella's YouTube.com channel or Rumble.com channel.