June Police Reports: 35 Thefts in Marple, 91 Medical Emergencies in Newtown

The adopted an annual contract for use of the Global Connect Emergency Notification System at a meeting on Monday night. Several other townships in Delaware County implement the Global Connect System, which utilizes the 911 call list in order to ensure complete coverage and allows the township to notify anyone with any message within minutes. 

"This is well worth the money we're going to spend on it," said Chief Tom Murray. 

Murray needed his own alert system during the meeting, as he noted that theft has jumped up to 35 incidents in June. 

"I don't know what I have to do, stand on my head?" Murray asked, pleading to the township. "Please lock [your] cars. Just last weekend we had seven cars entered in a block and a half."

Criminals, he said, are walking down the streets looking for open doors, and crimes of opportunity. Vandalism, however, has dipped to its lowest number of incidents since February, with only six reported for the month of June. 

Murray also informed the board that the police have been taking advantage of a law that permits them to charge criminals for being fingerprinted.

The machine that digitally scans the fingerprints costs around $75,000 and annual maintenance costs roughly, $8,500. The law states that the township is able to charge $300 for fingerprinting, though the money gained is only to be used to maintain the machine or purchase a new one when that time comes.

Chief Dennis Anderson provided Patch with June's incident reports. A total of 816 calls were made in June. The highest number of calls the police received last month was for medical emergencies–91 in total.

74 calls for business building check-ups was also reported last month. Another high number of calls were for township ordinance alarm calls (51 calls) and 44 calls for suspicious persons or incidents.

According to the log, there were seven criminal mischief incidents, one incident of a missing juvenile and one attempted suicide in the last month. In regards to traffic incidents, 18 incidents were reported involving traffic complaints/offenses and 25 traffic citations issued.