What Has Happened To Concord's Police Department?

This is hard for me to understand. Especially with all the negative press they've had lately. But unfortunately this morning at around 1:50 AM another representative of the Concord Police department has given them a black eye when dealing with the public. About fifteen minutes before that someone woke up everyone in the building who lives on the side facing the new Concord Commons building when someone from the city crew that was clearing snow used a snow blower to clear the alleyway between the buildings! If that wasn't bad enough, after they were done they continued with shoveling (that's what they should have done with the small amount of snow in the alley in the first place), but the person doing it kept banging his shovel on the wall of the building to knock the snow off. I finally opened my window and yelled at him that there were people trying to sleep up here, to which he yelled something belligerent! At that point I decided to call the police to make a noise complaint.

I called their non-emergency line, a woman answered the call and I proceeded to explain what the problem was. She immediately stated "there's nothing we're going to do about that"....
I started to say "but I thought there were noise laws...". The next thing I knew she had hung up on me. I just sat there, still holding the phone to my ear for close to a minute, trying to contemplate what had just happened. Just a few minutes before I was sleeping soundly, and now I was literally shaking with disbelief. I sat there for another minute or so and called the police back. I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I couldn't, and wouldn't stand for that kind of rude behavior from people who work for the public!

When the phone was answered it was by someone who identified himself as the shift supervisor. I explained what had just happened, along with my original complaint. This time I got a courteous person who took the time to listen to my complaint, and even though he also said there was nothing they could do, he explained that it was because because the snow removal crews weren't subject to the same noise laws that everyone else is.
He apologized for the behavior of the previous person and listened patiently as I continued to go on that I was able to understand the need to clear the streets at night, but that the job could have been done by shoveling alone instead of a snowblower, and also that the person doing it should have been more thoughtful towards the residents and definitely not belligerent like he was when told he was waking people up.


In all my dealings with the Concord Police over the years 99% of them have been professional and courteous. Every one of them was polite and helpful (except for that one rookie who treated me like a criminal after my late father's car had been towed away and I was distraught). That 99% seem like genuinely nice people. I have the utmost respect for them and the dangerous job they do, and the last thing they need is another example of one of them being rude to the people who pay their salary. What this woman who answered my call did was take a bad situation and compounded it by being curt and rude.

I'll be speaking to our local and state representatives about this latest episode and we'll find out what they have to say about it.

And one last thought.... The episode I just read about in the police log regarding a man who had just been released from prison after 30 years and was homeless was troubling. Sure he had been told to leave the building and was technically "trespassing" , but instead of arresting him, the human thing to do would have been to find him shelter for the night and steer him towards a public assistance program. Instead they sent him back into the system. How cold and heartless can you get? That's not the kind of society I want to belong to, and it's not the kind of society I believe we should strive for. Shame on the officer who made the decision to arrest him instead of giving him the help he so obviously needed.