Is Shorewood Police Department Able to Respond to Major Incidences?

The Westees have been all over the recent incident involving the Shorewood track coach. Generally speaking, it’s our opinion that this embarrassing incident indicates that the SPD did what we pay them to do. Our only concern is that we haven’t seen a public apology made to Coach Newman. I think if it had been the Police Chief, the apology would already be forthcoming, but the Deputy Chief, probably not. However, other things have come up about our little Police Department that we might want to get some more information on.

A couple of my drinking companions brought up that they had heard that the chief wasn’t going to hire another patrol officer even though he had the money. Seems strange that we’re wondering what he’s holding back on, is there something else that he has in mind? From what I understand they could use the extra body. The front line officers are always pushed; with people taking time off, officers in training and the detectives, they can be just about anywhere doing their investigations and unavailable. Somebody was saying that overtime is beginning to run up. However, maybe the answer has something to do with the shortage of police vehicles.

The shortage of police vehicles have really had all our tongues wagging between sips of our favorite adult beverages. It seems that the department doesn’t have enough vehicles and a call out on a major incident, such as a bank robbery, would leave some officers sitting at the station twiddling their thumbs or jumping into their private vehicles to respond. They are only planning on purchasing one other squad this year but that will still leave them short.

One of my cohorts reports that it’s just not the number of vehicles, but the electronics are getting old and a number of things don’t work consistently, such as cameras. I can’t imagine a dash camera not working to back up the officer on a disputed traffic stop. What we are wondering is why isn’t the Chief screaming about the situation of manpower shortage, too few squads and broken equipment. I’m wondering, is it the tight village budget that has hobbled the Chief’s tongue?