Here is a report of calls made to the Bethel Police Department for the months of May, June, and July this summer.
May
There were 1,524 calls for service the month of May. This is nearly 200 calls fewer than April and approximately 150 calls fewer than May of 2017. Calls for service for the week after the liquor store closed went down 200 calls compared to the previous week and over 100 calls from the week prior to that. Overall call volume by week for May has been 440, 340, 454, and 213 respectively.
The most immediate change in call volume since closing the liquor store (AC Quick Stop Liquor Store closed on 5/23/18) was intoxicated pedestrian calls. We went from an average of approximately 140 calls the previous three weeks to only 29 calls the week after. However, investigations requiring reports stayed approximately the same with 17. There didn’t appear to be an immediate drop in the felony cases either with 3 reported sexual assaults since closing the liquor store.
June
In the month of June 2018, by the third week, there have been 1,046 calls for service (with approximately one week left in the month). This is significantly fewer than May and approximately 500 calls fewer than the same period in 2017. Call volume has been fairly steady with an average of just over 300 calls per week with an average of approximately 50 Intoxicated Pedestrian calls per week.
Though our call volume has gone down compared to the previous months and the same period last year, the calls requiring criminal investigations and/or police reports has gone up. Officers have conducted 66 case investigations compared to only 56 for the same period last year. That number is also higher than the entire month of May compared to just over 3 weeks of June. Burglaries, thefts and domestic assaults were high, including two assaults involving firearms.
July
There have been 1,244 calls for service the month of July. This is approximately 200 more calls than June and approximately 650 fewer than the same period in 2017. The calls requiring investigative reports is almost identical, 76 in 2018 and 77 in 2017. The number of intoxicated pedestrian calls is consistent with June and down from 543 in July 2017 to 193 this month. There was one death investigation where alcohol was involved.
