Monday’s murder-suicide in downtown Burlington is the second fatal shooting this month. The Burlington Police Department said the increase in gun incidents is creating a need for additional support. “We’ve had a gunfire incident essentially every other week so far,” Acting Police Chief Jon Murad said. Murad said the amount of incidents this year is taking its toll on the department and we’re likely to see Vermont State Police assisting them more often. “We need assistance from a processing standpoint simply because we are running on all of our cylinders at this point, and it has been a really tough last couple of weeks for the men and women to be able to serve the people in this city the way we want to,” Murad said. Ward Five City Councilor Ben Traverse said the need for outside agencies offering additional support is not surprising. “This is something we knew was on the horizon if the department is unable to address recruitment and retention challenges if officer levels remain where they’re at it’s not sustainable,” Traverse said. Last month Burlington’s City Council unanimously approved a city budget with 2 million dollars of that funding expected to improve public safety.Traverse said if passed at Monday night’s city council meeting, the approval of a new police contract will be another step further in addressing public safety concerns in the Queen City. “I believe will further address some of our recruitment and retention challenges in the department allow us to better staff up some of these new great innovative alternative policing methods we’ve been working on but we’re gonna have to take steps from there as well,” Traverse said. But for now, the Burlington Police Department will continue to need additional support services as gun-fire incidents are likely to continue occurring throughout the year.”We’re going to see other agencies I think working with us more frequently going forward, although I’m hopeful we don’t have more of these incidents,” Murad said. “It is only July and the likelihood is we may see more of these kinds of incidents, but I hope that we don’t.”The proposed contract is still pending approval. Burlington’s City Council is expected to vote Monday night.
Monday’s murder-suicide in downtown Burlington is the second fatal shooting this month.
The Burlington Police Department said the increase in gun incidents is creating a need for additional support.
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“We’ve had a gunfire incident essentially every other week so far,” Acting Police Chief Jon Murad said.
Murad said the amount of incidents this year is taking its toll on the department and we’re likely to see Vermont State Police assisting them more often.
“We need assistance from a processing standpoint simply because we are running on all of our cylinders at this point, and it has been a really tough last couple of weeks for the men and women to be able to serve the people in this city the way we want to,” Murad said.
Ward Five City Councilor Ben Traverse said the need for outside agencies offering additional support is not surprising.
“This is something we knew was on the horizon if the department is unable to address recruitment and retention challenges if officer levels remain where they’re at it’s not sustainable,” Traverse said.
Last month Burlington’s City Council unanimously approved a city budget with 2 million dollars of that funding expected to improve public safety.
Traverse said if passed at Monday night’s city council meeting, the approval of a new police contract will be another step further in addressing public safety concerns in the Queen City.
“I believe [it] will further address some of our recruitment and retention challenges in the department allow us to better staff up some of these new great innovative alternative policing methods we’ve been working on but we’re gonna have to take steps from there as well,” Traverse said.
But for now, the Burlington Police Department will continue to need additional support services as gun-fire incidents are likely to continue occurring throughout the year.
“We’re going to see other agencies I think working with us more frequently going forward, although I’m hopeful we don’t have more of these incidents,” Murad said. “It is only July and the likelihood is we may see more of these kinds of incidents, but I hope that we don’t.”
The proposed contract is still pending approval. Burlington’s City Council is expected to vote Monday night.
