WORCESTER, Mass. — A Worcester Police officer assigned to Belmont St arrested 31-year-old Carlos Roman Sunday after an alleged drug deal outside the 7-Eleven.
Police say they found cocaine in Roman’s car when they pulled him over. The officer was part of the new investigative team meant to increase interactions with known violent offenders, establish a presence in areas with a high level of gun violence, and develop information on potential violence before it occurs.
“Everybody wants more drug enforcement in their neighborhood,” said Lt. Sean Murtha. “We have requests for those kinds of things but are limited by resources, but something like this does give us a chance to put extra officers on the street. They had them focus on the areas where we get complaints, the areas that you know have led to the gun violence. Preventing gun violence is a top priority for the Worcester Police Department, and the first weekend in which this new team was activated resulted in three arrests.”
Police say Roman faces possession with intent to distribute charges and has outstanding warrants.
In another incident, police pulled over a seventeen-year-old driver and fifteen-year-old passenger who matched the description of the vehicle involved in a recent gunshot call on Stanton St. They say the driver did not have a driver’s license, there was marijuana and liquor in the vehicle, and officers located a handgun in the vehicle. Neither of the occupants had a license to carry firearms. The seventeen-year-old driver was placed under arrest and charged with Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle and Minor Transporting Alcohol and the fifteen-year-old passenger was charged with Carrying a Loaded Firearm, Unlawful Carrying of a Firearm, Possession of a Large Capacity Firearm, Possession of a Large Capacity Feeding Device, Possession of Ammunition, Improperly Storing a Firearm Near a Minor, Possession of Class D with Intent to Distribute, and Minor Transporting Alcohol.
“The crime analysis division crunches numbers from every arrest and it uses that data to guide where to place officers,” said Lt. Murtha.
But some feel this can be a slippery slope.
“That is targeting black and brown people obviously disproportionately,” said Massachusetts State Representative Russell Holmes. “So that is very different than going to talk and these communities and saying ‘Tell us some of the things you’ve seen, tell us some of the challenges you have, tell us what we may be able to find in some challenges before they arise because my community knows them.’ Because they know these problems and they know these people. That is community policing.”
“That’s obviously important to us,” said Lt. Murtha. “This type of crime cuts across races. All races in Worcester are obviously involved in crime and what we want to do is make it so people in all the neighborhoods can be safe, live in those neighborhoods without having to worry about gunshots popping through their windows, having to put their kids in the bathtub so they don’t get shot.”
Worcester PD says they believe this approach works well here for 2 reasons:
1. Crime in this city is pretty spread out and not focused on one area the way it may be in some other cities
2. Police say they don’t see a lot of anonymous violence and they feel like the city is small enough that they know the people here who are more prone to violent acts.
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