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Orono Police Department to open doors to the community

By Sam Cohen

Posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007, 12:00 am

Ever wanted to take a bite out of crime with McGruff the Crime Dog? Well, you can at the Orono Police Department open house next weekend.

The open house will run from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10. In addition to the presence of McGruff, it will include activities such as prescription drug returns, equipment demonstrations, a bounce house, tours of the police department, meet- and-greets with Orono officers and child fingerprinting.

Door prizes including bike helmets, D.A.R.E. Frisbees and wristbands, teddy bears and fleece blankets will be given out along with hamburgers, hot dogs and other refreshments.

Prescription drug returns are a program that allows anyone with old prescription drugs to give them to the police who will then have them destroyed.

This will mark the first year the police department will have an open house without the involvement of the Orono Fire Department. The goal of the open house is to open up to the community and educate them on the daily activities of police officers, according to Sergeant Scott Wilcox.

“By educating the community on what we do and how they can help us, we can take care of problems together a lot easier,” Wilcox said. “We can educate each other. If you want a stop sign somewhere, give us a call and let us know. We can fix that. We want to make Orono a better place to live, and we want to let people know that we’re human, too.”

Wilcox hopes that by creating new relationships with members of the community, Orono will become a safer town. A new community watch program last year failed to catch on, but, if the open house is successful, the department might consider giving it another shot.

Another way the department is reaching out to the community is with the Citizen’s Police Academy program. The program, currently underway, is six weeks long and has the motto, “Cooperation through community involvement.” In the program, volunteers are taught the laws of arrest, the rules of searches and seizures, alcohol arrest policy, crime scene investigation and police ethics. The volunteers are sent to participate in the Fire Arms Training System test where they are taught the use of force rules with firearms. They are then given a tour of the Penobscot County regional dispatch center. The class ends with a crime scene investigation scenario where participants must determine what crime has taken place at a simulated crime scene.

Volunteers are also required to participate in a minimum of eight hours riding along with police officers on patrol. This can teach the volunteers how many calls a police officer receives in a night and how the officer responds to each situation.

For Sgt. Wilcox, it is important that the program’s volunteers learn how challenging being a police officer can be. “People get to see firsthand what we go through everyday, and it opens them up to what might be taking place in their community in terms of crime,” he said.

Ultimately, Sgt. Wilcox would like the public to view police officers as approachable, and the open house will help. “People will see us at the open house, and that might create enough comfort in them to approach us when they need help with something or if something is wrong,” he said.

Wilcox will enjoy learning from the public during the open house. “We learn what people expect out of us,” he said. “We’re always looking at how we can approve.”