NEW BERLIN – The Town of New Berlin Police Department’s annual report for 2009 shows more arrests, more traffic tickets and more calls than in the last two years.
Officer in Charge Dominick Commesso has been the administrator of the department since the previous police chief was excused in 2008 by the Town of New Berlin Board.
Commesso directs five other part-time officers who cover 92 hours of every week, working a rotating schedule that includes nights and holidays.
“I’m a believer in having police on duty when they can make the most impact. That means having late night shifts on the weekend and scheduling officers to be active when criminal activity tends to happen. It might be easier for us to work a nine to five shift, but that’s not what the community pays us to be here for. We’re here to do the best job we can with the resources we’ve got,” said Commesso.
All of the officers working at the New Berlin Police are part-time; some only help the agency during annual events or to fulfill special state grant programs such as Buckle Up New York and Stop DWI, which pay local departments for the additional staff to be on patrol without additional cost to the town’s taxpayers.
Each of the officers at the New Berlin Police also work at other area police departments, including the Norwich PD, the Chenango County Sheriff’s Office, the Owego PD and the Binghamton University Police. Altogether, the staff has more than three decades of combined law enforcement experience.
According to Commesso, the department handled 704 complaints in 2009 an increase of about 36 percent from the 451 complaints in 2008 or the 412 recorded in 2007. “These are the calls we don’t hand off to other agencies. These are the ones we go out to and take care of ourselves,” he explained.
New Berlin also saw a rise in the number of traffic tickets and criminal arrests made in the last three years. In 2009, police issued 677 traffic tickets, a 20 percent rise from the 539 handed out in 2008 and nearly double the 365 issued in 2007.
New Berlin officers issued 64 criminal charges in 2009, about a 40 percent increase from the 39 made in 2008 and more than double the 24 made in 2007.
Of those 64 arrests, 16 of them involved felony level charges – 12 of which were made in a single month after police charged multiple people in a case involving felony grand larceny and scheming to defraud charges. Four Utica women were charged with multiple felonies after writing several bad checks for hundreds of dollars each and using them at a New Berlin business. The women then took the merchandise they stole back to their hometown and resold it for cash.
Another large case for the department took place Sept. 8, when the PD and the New York State Troopers raided a local property and discovered a fledging marijuana growing operation, seizing 35 plants estimated to have a street value of several thousand dollars.
Commesso said many of the maturing plants were around 6 to 7 feet tall and were hidden among thick foliage and thorn bushes about quarter of mile into a wooded area.
In July, New Berlin worked with the Chenango County Sheriff’s Office in investigating a rash of thefts and a burglary centered around the Chenango Lake community.
The crime spree began July 4 with several stolen cars, then a home burglary two weeks later followed by a rash of car break-ins a few days after that.
The Sheriff’s Office handled the stolen car and theft complaints while the New Berlin PD investigated a home burglary that took place July 15.
“To single out something we’ve tried to focus on this year, I’d have to say we’re being more proactive by developing new relationships, and strengthening old ones, in the community and with neighboring law enforcement agencies,” said Commesso.
Although the department is based in the Town of New Berlin, the board has authorized the department to cover the Village of New Berlin in a gesture of shared services. The agency began tracking statistics on crime taking place in the village and Commesso submits a monthly arrest report to the village board.
“It’s a small town and we deal with 10 percent of the population 90 percent of the time. We do a lot a community policing. It can be very personal and the more people we establish relationships with, the easier our job will get and the more effective we can be,” said Commesso.
The New Berlin Police will soon be welcoming a K-9 drug searching unit to its ranks around September of 2010.
Corporal Robert L. Jones is a three-year, part-time veteran of the New Berlin and Owego Police who adopted a 15-week-old Schutzhund German Shepherd named Bruno in September of 2009.
In just under 12 months, Bruno and Jones are scheduled to complete the required training for a Certified New York State Drug Detection K-9 dog at the Southern Tier K-9 Association’s facility in Binghamton.
Jones has dedicated his own free time and money to the project that will provide both departments he works for with a designated K-9 unit. Already Jones has spent over $2,000 in acquiring the animal and for its medical care.
“Why am I doing this? We need it, we just plain need it. It’ll make our job of local drug enforcement much easier here (in New Berlin) in the long run. We have serious drug problems in the local community and a dog can make a huge difference, not just here but in both New Berlin and Owego,” said Jones.
“I can’t begin to explain the value of having our own K-9 unit in the New Berlin PD. They’re worth their weight in gold,” said Commesso. “We are not a big destination spot for drugs really, but there’s a lot of activity moving through New Berlin, especially along the state routes. A K-9 unit can give an officer probable cause he wouldn’t ordinarily have. Just having them along side, you will often send a person carrying drugs into a panic because they know just how capable they really are.”