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Clinton News-Record, 1975-05-15, Page 13• t once orces open P has large area patrol each day 4) It's $ p.rn. Thursday evening and Adam- ' • 12 roars, on to the livingroorn TV screen. Fresh. -faced, uniformed police officers, Pete Molloy and Jim Reed have arrived to entertain with parking tickets, car chases and sb,00t-outs, to roar off, Scott free and as fresh as 'daisies, 30 minutes later. The TV goes off having supplied sponsor with • needed ratings and John Q. Public with a chance to share - in the exciting and - ,glamorous lives of two of LA's fin est.. t,* Unfortunately, the fact that Reed and Malloy are the creations of some Hollywood script writer and that the weekly antics of this dynamic duo are glorified for the sake of entertainment escapes many viewers, who come to regard their real-life policeman in the same light. In real-life however, police work is a far cry from the way it is depicted on the "idiot box"; an evening spent cruising in the town's patrol car ably attests to that fact. Police patrols in Clinton follow no set routes and continue throughout the night. Daring the course of an evening, periodic checks* are made of places containing large gatherings of people, especially premises that have been licensed . to serve liquor. Other • than that the patrol car remains relatively free to roam the streets of Clinton. The evening in question begins with an inspection of the stalls of a local livestock auction for a 600 pound heifer stolen a few weeks earlier from a neighbouring town. The search proves fruitless as will many others during the course of the night but police work operates on the theory that sooner or latera suspicion will pay off. By 9 the activity on the town's streets has subsided with most people at home, .at the movies or in the hotels. Patrols through a drive-in theatre show everything to be quiet, although coin- cidence somehow has mushy love scen,es playing everytime the police car rolls through. Checks of the local watering holes and a school dance also pass without intidents, a state of affairs, the constables assure the reporter, that is very rare on a Friday night. At midnight the calm of the evening bursts and all hell breaks loose on the main streets for the next few hours, as people who have been out for the evening return home. According to the constables, any trouble they will encounter in the remainder of the night will come from the stragglers still left on the streets when the rush of cars is over. Holding true to prediction, a car speeds by leaving a tossed empty beer bottle spinning on the road in its wake. A search of the car turns up one full bottle of beer and another half empty after frantic at- tempts by the car's occupants to dump the bottle's contents in the car's interior before being stopped by the cruiser.. The car's driver steps out to the cruiser and politely answers the constable's questions as the latter .makes out a ticket for having liquor. The fine of $53, however, illicits curses and threats. The squeal of burning rubber in another part of town pierces the night and the cruiser makes a U-turn to take up the chase of the hot rodder. The intentional intervention by a third automobile between the offender and ,the patrol car frustrates apprehension by the police, but whether he knows it or not, the identity of the driver of the third car does not go unnoticed and his movements will bear greater scrutiny by police in the future. All night the car silently slips through the streets sometimes successful in catching offenders, and other times having its at- tempts thwarted. Unlike Reed and Malloy, real-life policemen feel the strain of the chase, take verbal abuse and depending on an of- fender's state of mind, may have to bear the brunt of physical blows. One thing about a night out cruising with the Clinton police, is that it sure isn't the Sunday drive depicted on TV's Adam -12! Constable Don Armstrong of the Clinton police force radios to headquarters from his car police radio. The screen behind him protects officers from prisoners who many times are violent and disruptive. oors daring Police Advantages, drawbacks to policing small town According to Clinton Police Chief Lloyd Westlake, there are both advantages and disadvantages to being a lawman in, a small town. "The advantages, from • the criminal investigation aspect, is that you know from past experience whether you shoula watch a person or not," he said. "The disadvantages are that some people expect preferential treatment because you know them." Over the last few years the Clinton Police has had more cooperation from the town's citizens ; a result of the Force's in- volvement in the community, Chief Westlake said. "You improve relations between the police and the public by getting to know the younger people," he said. "Constable Wayne McFadden's in- volvement with the safety program, Constable Don Shropshall's with hockey and Constable Don Armstrong's with soccer, have -brought them into contact with a lot of the teenagers," he said, adding that the crime, rate is on the decrease in Clinton. With the aforementioned constables, Chief Westlake and a recent addition, Constable Garry Weir, complete Clinton's five man force. Together, they work 24 hours a- day, seven days a week; the off duty officers remaining on call.' The force has only one patrol car but, "We all have 'riders' on our own cards," Chief Westlake said, "so that we can be reached when we're off duty and an - emergency arises that requires our help:: Chief Westlake said the force was doing a pretty good job considering the tiny, cramped office space that. they have to work out of, in the Town Hall. - "The small office, accommodation is a Real We cops have than TV's tougher ,time Public relations between the police and the public have deteriorated over the. last 10 years to the point where people today have less respect for and give less cooperation to their police, according to Sergeant Thomas Redpath of the Goderich OPP detachment. May 11 to May 17 is Police Week, a time when the police open their doors to the public and give people the opportunity to learn all about their law enforcement, but it is an opportunity that very few people, besides school children., take, Sgt. Redpath said. There are 20 policemen at the Goderich detachment of the OPP on Highway 21. These 20 men, sharing six cars and two snowmobiles in the winter, are responsible for policing five townships or an area of 356 square miles, which contains 675 miles of road -to patrol. Over 4,000 OPP officers police areas throughout the province which have no police forces of their own. Although the OPP has the jurisdiction to work in areas that do have their own forces, they prefer working in conjunction with their city and town counterparts, Sgt. Redpath said. A recent study by .the Ontario Police Com- mission recommended tliat policing in Huron County be carried out by the OPP, +-but-St. Redpath said he coukt4lot. 'see the- OPP in -such a role -in -the near future,- - -- The OPP spends most of its time patrolling roads but is also responsible for enforcing the statutes that the city police observe. Petty thefts and breaking and entering are the two most common of- fences the OPP run across in a resort area where most of the 1,500 cottage dwellings stand unoccupied for eight months of the year. Goods recovered from thefts are kept in a vault at the OPP's Goderich headquarters. Boxes of food, radio and roller skates, among others, await ciaims of ownership. An adjoining vault holds liquor that the OPP has confiscated during highway patrols. "We may make .as many as 20 liquor seizures on a weekend," Sgt. Redpath said, adding, that the liquor is kept in the vault until it is transported to a liquor store where it is dumped down the drain. Much of the OPP's success in capturing wanted criminals is due to a direct ter- minal with the CEPIC computer in Ottawa. With the use of the computer, area police can have a computer printout of any in- dividual's criminal record with 15 seconds, Civilian Radio Dispatcher, Glenn McMichael, said that 4-5,000 messages a month 'are programmed through the computer for all of Huron County.. The detachment has four jail cells but they are very rarely used, St. Redpath _tonr_of TheG&lerich headquarers is --- available- -at- any time and Sgt.:Redo-dr encourages the public to come out and see the kind of law enforcement its tax dollars support. News -Record reporter Chris Zdeb tries out one of the spacious clean and modern cells at the Goderich OPP headquarters. Ironically, two of the cells together would be bigger than the whole Clinton Police office. meters, providing police escorts, and supervising crossing guards have remained as some of the duties of the Force, and as far as Chief Westlake is concerned, society could not do without its .policemen. "If there was no police, the weak people would be victimized by _the strong and nervy types," he said. "In this business you have to be suspicious of everyone because of the responsibility you have to be right all the time. We never make very many mistakes," he added. May 11 to May 17 is Police Week and the public is invited to drop into the police office to informally meet with its police officers over coffee and doughnuts on Saturday, May 17 from 10 to 3. Week handicap," he said, "but it's a problem we hope to have rectified in the near future." Chief Westlake estimated the Depart- ment's working budget would be $90,000 as compared to last year's $78,000. "Part of that total comes from the $8 per capita grant that we get from the Provincial Government," he said. Referring to the controversy over the OPP's proposed policing of , the municipalities,besides the county, Chief Westlake said that it was a touchy issue, "Because the government has set no guide lines on such taketwers." The Clinton Police Force celebrates its 100th Anniversary this year and plans to publish a book on the history of the department by the fall. Two Central Huron Secondary School students, Wayne Caldwell and Linda Webster, are in the process of researching material for the text. Times have changed since contract clauses required Clinton's Police Chief to cut the grass around the station, but patrolling town streets, controlling parking f" 'Duty In just 15 seconds, the Goderich betachment of the Ontario Provincial Polide can have a rtindown on any license plate in the country ora person's criminal record through -their terminal with the CEPIC eoniputer in Ottawa. Here Glenn MciVitchael Goderich types in a message. Most police forces in the area also use the service through the Goderich OPP. Sergeant Tom Redpath, who is in chargeof the Goderich Detachment of the OPP, explains a point of police procedure tto"a visitor. Sgt. Redpath would like Om- niunica dons with the public to be better. In 'contrast to the overloading and antiquated facilities of the (linton Pollee Department,. the Goderich OPP headquarters on Highway 21 south Of Goderich are modern, roomy and offer all the up4o-date facilities needed for present day Wilicing. The • •• 0. ' • .r.;„ Goderich OPP detachment has 20 men on their staff and they patrol a wide 'area of Huron county, from Kippen to Lon- desboro, and from Goderich to Seiforth.