DIXFIELD — Extra police patrols will be out at random times and places thanks to two grants the Police Department recently received.

Chief Richard Pickett said the department received a $1,940 grant that will allow additional patrols to focus on enforcing the safety-belt law.

Funds for these patrols have come from the Bureau of Highway Safety for more than a decade.

“If we can get people buckling up, that’s the goal. Seat belts save lives,” he said.

The added patrols will be in force from May 21 through June 3.

The second grant, from the Maine Warden Service for $6,400, will provide funds for extra patrols to enforce all-terrain-vehicle regulations and to conduct safety checks.

Pickett said police officers are working with members of the Maine Warden Service. The grant began on May 12 and will continue through July 31.

The department has responded to 50 complaints since May 1. Among them were at least a half-dozen cases of vandalism, including a gravestone tipped to the ground at the Greenwood Cemetery causing $300 damage, two mail boxes destroyed on Pine Street, and a BB shot into the front window of Ellis’s Store on Weld Street causing more than $200 damage.

Burglaries

* An century-old antique doll was stolen from a Lyons Lane residence and the interior was damaged after someone entered the unoccupied home. The incident was reported at 2:30 p.m. May 12.

* The owner of a Rowe Street residence reported at 10 p.m. May 2 that someone had broken into his home and caused extensive damage to most of the rooms in the building. The electrical wires were also cut.

Accident

* A 2001 Hyundai passenger vehicle driven by Edmund Smith, 34, of Dryden, hit a deer at 4:50 a.m. May 15 at Main and Spring streets. The vehicle sustained minor damage. The injured deer fled and was not found.

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