The following is a news release from the Boulder Police Department:
Residents will see more police officers on patrol in central Boulder as part of a new Neighborhood Impact Team approach the police department is implementing to prioritize problem-solving and police response in those areas.
The Neighborhood Impact Team will patrol a new district that’s been created which encompasses University Hill, the downtown Mall and municipal campus, the Goss-Grove neighborhood and the Boulder Creek Bike Path from Boulder High School to Eben G. Fine Park. The geographic boundaries covered by the Neighborhood Impact Team are approximately: Sixth St. on the west, Broadway on the east, between Pine St. and Spruce St. on the north and Baseline on the south.
The Neighborhood Impact Team will replace the current University Hill Team and the nighttime Pearl Street Mall Team. Those teams consisted of six officers on the Hill and two officers on the Mall during peak call times (overnight and early morning hours). There will be 12 officers and one sergeant on duty during peak call times with the Neighborhood Impact Team.
These officers will patrol central Boulder on foot, in patrol cars and on bicycles when the weather permits. This team will focus on handling some of the unique problems that come with high-density population areas such as University Hill, and high-traffic areas like the Pearl Street Mall. Some of the issues that face those neighborhoods include public intoxication, medical calls for intoxicated people, quality of life crimes (such as urinating in public), assaults, sex assaults, DUI issues and accidents, noise complaints and disagreements stemming from the use of fake IDs at local bars and restaurants.
During the school year (August through May), the Neighborhood Impact Team will patrol Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. Historically, this has been a high-volume call period for Boulder police. During the summer months (May through August), eight officers will remain assigned to the Neighborhood Impact Team’s Wednesday through Saturday schedule, and four officers will rotate to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (5 p.m. – 3 a.m.), which will allow the department to have extra staffing in place in central Boulder six days a week.
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner says the goal of this new team is to be proactive and responsive to the community’s needs.
“It’s important that our officers get out into the neighborhoods, business districts and student areas and really get to know the people they’re protecting,” says Chief Beckner. “This approach is actually based on old school policing – we call it “community policing” these days – but it involves getting out into the districts, interacting with people and helping them to solve problems as they arise. We want to do everything we can to make Boulder a safe place for people to live and to enjoy, and we want people to be comfortable coming to us for help.”
In addition to the extra officers who will be permanently assigned to the Neighborhood Impact Team, individual officers on that team will be assigned to businesses, fraternity and sorority houses, and neighborhood groups so that those groups have their own liaison from the police department that they can contact directly when they need assistance.
The Neighborhood Impact Team began its new assignment last week.