The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office and the New Baltimore Police Department are working to expand the services they bring to local communities.
Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham and New Baltimore Police Chief Tim Wiley boasted their efforts during Business by the Bay on Aug. 7 in downtown New Baltimore. The summer event is organized by the Anchor Bay and Sterling Heights Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Wickersham provided updates on projects his office is undertaking that he said “will help us in law enforcement and corrections to provide better services to residents in Macomb County.”
“One of the bigger projects that gets a lot of the media attention right now is our operation center; it’s called COMTEC,” he said under the pavilion in Walter and Mary Burke Park. “We have four county departments that are going to be under one roof.”
Wickersham said the Communications and Technology Center that was completed in December 2013 houses emergency management, the department of roads and IT. By the end of the month, he said, dispatchers from the sheriff’s office will move in, making them the fourth county group to be housed in the COMTEC building.
“Right now, all the dispatchers are actually right next to my office,” he said. “We’ll be moving them the week of the 18th into the new building and making sure that all the technology works and providing dispatch services and first responders with the most updated, current information as they’re responding.”
Housing dispatch in the COMTEC building, which is located on Groesbeck Highway in Mount Clemens, will help the county continue to work toward consolidating services, Wickersham said. The sheriff’s office currently provides dispatch services for six communities: Harrison Township, Mount Clemens, Macomb Township, Lenox Township, Washington Township and the village of New Haven.
“In the past two years, we’ve been in negotiations with other communities to consolidate dispatch services,” he said. “In 2013, we started dispatching for Clinton Township; they basically disbanded and got out of the dispatching business and now we’re dispatching police, fire and EMS. In early fall, we’ll be bringing Sterling Heights over; we’ll be doing their police, fire and EMS dispatching.”
A benefit of housing dispatch in the COMTEC building is the ability to tap into security cameras throughout the county, the sheriff noted.
“We partnered with Romeo School District and we did an active shooter exercise at one of the Romeo middle schools,” he said. “We were able to tap into their cameras in that school district and we were able to see real-time what was going on and we were able to provide that information to the first responding deputies… You can imagine, under an old system, if you have an active shooter, whether it’s at a school or whether it’s in a building, police officers are going in blind; they really don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. But if they know there’s a shooter, especially in a school situation, we are now trained that once you have two or three police officers, deputy sheriffs there, you go on in, you look for that threat and you neutralize that threat before they can do any more damage.”
A second major project within the sheriff’s office is the Macomb County Jail, which dates back to 1954, Wickersham said. The sheriff’s office is looking at having an analysis done on the jail, he noted.
“We really have to look at how we’re dealing with prisoners here in Macomb County,” he said. “Since 2009, we’ve been on a bed allocation; each judge throughout the county, whether at the circuit or district level, has X amount of beds. They’re controlling our population and we’re spending money; we’re doing repairs right now. We actually are shuffling prisoners around to different sections so we can make the necessary repairs.”
Wickersham said more than 70 percent of prisoners are in jail because of pre-existing substance abuse issues, and many suffer from mental health issues.
“Our mental health section is so outdated; some of those cells are constant security that we have to keep an eye on them 24 hours a day, so it’s really a challenge for the corrections officers there,” he said. “I think we need to look at how we’re doing that and come up with a better actual facility or physical plan.”
The sheriff also said the department is working toward obtaining the ability to allow county residents to text 911 through a program called Next Generation 911.
NB department working to expand, form partnerships
The New Baltimore police chief also said his department is working to expand some of the services that it offers, as well as form new partnerships.
“We have grown a bit and we have expanded some of our services that we offer and we have also formed some unique partnerships,” Wiley said. “We have 18 certified police officers in the city. We have 40 members of the department in total when you take a look at our reserve compliment.”
Wiley also made reference to the issues surrounding the county jail.
“We are responsible for the care and custody of our prisoners until they’re arraigned,” he said. “Once they’re formally arraigned in front of a judge, then all of the sudden they get transferred onto the sheriff’s office, but otherwise they’re with us, so that’s kind of been a learning curve for us taking care of prisoners. Normally we’ve only been in the business of arresting people, but also then taking care of them after the fact has been somewhat of a learning curve. But the sheriff’s office has provided all this support in teaching us how to best supervise and take care of those prisoners until they get to the sheriff’s office, so we’re very much appreciative for that.”
In addition, Wiley said the New Baltimore department has expanded thanks to a federal grant that allows officers to protect the city’s waterfront with the marine division.
“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to provide those services to our residents, as well,” he noted.
The New Baltimore Police Department has also partnered with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
“We have one of our officers who is assigned full-time to the DEA Task Force, a new task force that was just developed in our area that focuses solely on pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies and physicians that are getting involved with these types of prescription drugs that are going out there,” Wiley said. “The abuse of prescription medications is just running rampant; we really need to get the information out about this. We’re taking a proactive approach to it. We have a New Baltimore investigator who is nationwide handling cases that are coming right back full circle into our community, so we’re taking a proactive stance there.
“We also have one of our investigators that is part time with the Computer Crimes Task Force through the sheriff’s office, as well as the FBI. Those computer crimes, as we know, have no boundaries; and when you have crimes that are boundary-less, you have to work together with your federal, state and local partners to actually investigate those and get those accomplished and be able to identify the people responsible.”
In addition, Wiley took time to recognize Lisa Edwards, who is stepping down from her post as president of the Anchor Bay Chamber of Commerce.
“I think it’s really important that we thank you for all of your years of service here to the Anchor Bay Chamber, as well as the partnership that you were instrumental in forming with Sterling Heights Regional,” he said. “This is Lisa Edwards’ last chamber event; she is moving on to the private sector world and still utilizing her skills and talents.”
Contact Katelyn Larese at (586) 273-6196 or katelyn.larese@voicenews.com. She can be followed on Twitter @katelynlarese.
