In Lynn and in Chelsea, foot patrol officers patrolling the downtown centers of those two cities have reported that their presence is a welcome addition not just to residents shopping or walking in the downtown areas but for the many shopkeepers and businesses.
By selectively putting foot patrol officers on Broadway, the Revere Police Department is doing the right thing. By doing so recently, Revere has effectively put on notice the various groups of kids and others who use Broadway as their criminal headquarters.
The absence of officers or an officer on Broadway worries most shopkeepers and many residents shopping in the downtown as well.
For when there are no officers around, the place is left open to an often unruly and threatening element of young people and fringe types whose lives aren’t all neat and clean.
The new police presence on Broadway is about much more than making older citizens feel more comfortable, as one senior police captain was recently quoted as saying.
It makes everyone in business on Broadway feel much better that there is a police presence and it is real and that everyone notices it.
So much of what police do to make Broadway safer relies on perception.
If the perception is that there are no police on Broadway this cedes Broadway to a potentially bad element that makes it bad for all of us who are here everyday during the week.
The Revere Journal is located on Broadway and has been for the past 80 years – so we know something about Broadway and about the ability of a police presence to put the lid on potentially bad behavior.
As old fashioned as it might tend to sound, the everyday appearance of a Revere police officer patrolling Broadway makes everyone around here feel that much safer.
That is the simple fact of the matter.
And if you are on the fringe of criminality, you will not tend to act out if you know a police officer may be lurking around.
We applaud the police department for finally putting a police officer on Broadway.
