RUMFORD – Maine State Police have assigned two new troopers to northern Oxford County to help with the workload.
Once training is completed in two weeks, Troopers Scot Sawyer of Rumford and Tyler Stevenson of Wayne are to begin working in Oxford County.
“It’s the area of most urgent need,” Trooper Terry James said Thursday.
Until now, James and Troopers Kyle Tilsley and Daniel Hanson have handled most state police calls in the greater Bethel area, James said.
The area includes Gilead, Bethel, Milton Township, Newry, Upton, Andover, Roxbury, Byron, Canton, Hartford, Cupsuptic and Parmachenee townships, Magalloway Plantation and Grafton Notch.
“In the past five years, we’ve been very, very busy,” he said.
“The area is growing, and there are a lot of new houses coming in. Maine is changing, and where we’ve been on our heels for so long, the hope is that we can now dig in,” James said.
Stevenson said that troopers have a 12-hour-per-day responsibility, but work either eight-hour or 10-hour shifts. The remainder of their time is spent on call.
But, James said, he, Tilsley and Hanson have been working 12-hour days “out of necessity,” and more, to keep up with the workload.
“Considering the area we have to cover, we’ve been very busy, and then dumb luck happens and we get two calls at the same time, one in Gilead and one in Canton, and they’re 50 miles apart, or one in Roxbury and another in Hartford,” he said.
In 1998, James said that the state police established call-sharing agreements with the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, dividing up Oxford County’s 2,000 square miles in an effort to handle the increasing call volume.
On average, James said three troopers were able to cover most of the shifts, but some days were staffed with only one or two troopers.
“It’s the same with Oxford County, and they’re now getting increased manpower like us,” James said.
He said that the three troopers have averaged 80 calls for service each month.
“Of that, a lot of it is property crimes up here, and, also, there is a very high amount of domestic crime here, and we are required to do a lot of paperwork for these crimes to record statistics,” James said.
He said that two other factors weighed on the decision to bring in extra staff: major crackdowns on crime in Maine’s larger towns and cities, and calls generated by swelling winter populations from Sunday River Ski Resort.
“The crackdowns in the larger areas worked, but the people doing the crimes left. They took the path of least resistance, and headed for the rural areas,” James said.
Typical trooper duties, he said, range from acting as dogcatchers to being first-responders at fires. Duties include drug interdiction, traffic work, and investigating accidents, assaults and sexual assaults.
“At one point last year, I had 22 burglaries in Roxbury in one day,” he said.
Winter is when criminal activity heats up in northern Oxford County, he said.
“Sunday River brings an increase in calls and criminal activity. To have 45,000 people on the mountain is not unusual,” James said.
James said that Stevenson would be working days; Sawyer, nights.
“This third person will make a huge difference. And, with having two people on on the night shift, backup will be that much closer,” James said.
“This area is very lucky to have them, and we need them very dearly. They’re going to do a good job up here, and the communities are very lucky to have them,” he said.
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