BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Despite recruitment challenges, Burlington’s police chief says the department is prepared for summer in the city.
Chief Jon Murad says staffing is like last year, with two officers assigned to the area around City Hall Park and the Church Street Marketplace. Additional officers will be north and south of downtown.
Right now, the department has 65 officers with only 24 on patrol.
Murad says the department will remain agile in where resources can be deployed.
“Right now we are planning to have a subposture similar to last summer where we do put a lot of emphasis on the Marketplace and City Hall Park, but if we suddenly saw another part of town experiencing certain kinds of disorder that were problematic or pronounced, we’d obviously want to redeploy our resources to that area in town,” the chief said.
Murad says police are not currently seeing the levels of gun violence the city saw in 2022 or the levels of public drug use and overdoses from last year.
He anticipates having two more officers available for patrol this summer.
Burlington police have also been able to fill all their community support liaison positions.