Springfield Police Department

    Many cities in the region will participate today in National Night Out, an annual event that seeks to improve relations between the police and the community.

  The top cop in Springfield, Massachusetts said he supports body cameras for the city’s police officers but obstacles remain to using the technology. The costs might be prohibitive and there are complex legal issues.

Although crime is down in the largest city in western Massachusetts, the head of the Springfield Police Department is hiring more officers and looking for an increase in the next city budget.

    A special committee has begun working to identify ways to improve relations between the police and the community in one western Massachusetts city.

    There’s fallout from the surprise move by the mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts to announce plans to hire a new fire chief.

   A serious rift opened between the mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts and the city council in 2016 over the issue of police supervision.  It threatened to pit the city’s executive and legislative branches against each other in court.

A showdown in court appears likely between the executive and legislative branches in the third largest city in Massachusetts in a dispute over the management of the police department.

Just hours before a scheduled city council vote that could lead to a board of civilians running the police department in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city’s mayor held a news conference this afternoon.  Mayor Domenic Sarno announced an appointment to the city’s Community Police Hearing Board and defended the advisory board’s work. 

The trial of a retired Springfield police officer charged with stealing nearly $400,000 from the department's evidence room has been postponed.

   The city council and the mayor in Springfield, Massachusetts are on a collision course over control of the police department.  The dispute could be settled in court.

    The largest police department in western Massachusetts has opened an online portal to share real-time information about crime with the public. 

The chief legal counsel for the city of Springfield, Massachusetts is advising the city council not to move forward with a plan to put a board of civilians in charge of the police department.

      Responding to recent allegations of police misconduct, the Springfield City Council has taken an initial step toward having a civilian board oversee the department. 

   In the wake of scandal over alleged misconduct, the city council in Springfield, Massachusetts is poised to vote tonight to put a board of civilians in charge of all police department personnel decisions. The move is strongly opposed by the city’s mayor. 

     People have gotten used to posting profiles about themselves on social media and now one western Massachusetts city is encouraging its residents to create public safety profiles too.

     The case of a police detective who threatened to kill two teenagers but was not fired and a ruling by a federal judge in an excessive force lawsuit have reignited debate in Springfield, Massachusetts over who should investigate complaints of police brutality.

         A narcotics detective in Springfield, Massachusetts has been suspended, but not fired, after he threatened to kill and plant drug evidence on two teenagers who had stolen an unmarked police car. His actions have jeopardized a number of drug cases.

Police in a western Massachusetts city are trying to strengthen ties with the community by giving people a better insight on the work police officers do. 

The Springfield Police Department this week began a free 10-week citizens police academy. 

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Springfield police community liaison Kathleen Brown.

       After a relatively peaceful summer, the city of Springfield, Massachusetts has been jolted by a rash of shootings.

The city of Springfield, Massachusetts plans to hire 59 police officers this year, the largest addition to the city’s police department in 20 years. Along with the additional officers comes a new plan to deploy more cops downtown. 

The Springfield Police Department will create the Metro Policing Area, a special unit that will operate permanently along the downtown Main Street corridor between the location of the future MGM casino and Union Station.

The civilian board that investigates complaints against the police in Springfield, Massachusetts has not issued a public report about its work in almost two years. The mayor’s office says there is no target date for releasing the overdue reports that are supposed to come out annually.

While some cities put up cameras at traffic intersections to spot motorists speeding through red lights, Springfield, Massachusetts is putting cameras in trees to catch people illegally dumping tires, mattresses, appliances, and garbage bags.     

City officials gathered Tuesday at Loon Pond, once a notorious illegal dumping site, to announce plans to double the number of locations that will be monitored continuously by motion-triggered cameras as part of an ongoing campaign against blight.

Police officials in Springfield are urging members of the city council to extend the western Massachusetts city’s moratorium on new pawn shops.

Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri said the two-year moratorium has helped to control crime – not just in Springfield but throughout western Massachusetts — and he recommends it be extended beyond its scheduled expiration this June.

Barbieri said the 42 pawn shops and junk dealers currently licensed in the city is a manageable number for police to keep tabs on.

A closed U.S. Army reserve center in western Massachusetts will be renovated for various uses by the Springfield Police Department.

The federal government turned over the former reserve center complex located in east Springfield to the city free of charge, but with a deed restriction that it be used only for law enforcement purposes.  The police academy, tactical response unit, property division, and youth services will occupy the former military building after renovations are completed in about 18 months.

More technology is being put into fighting crime in Springfield, Massachusetts. The city’s police department will become the first in the Northeast to use a system that developers say allows for true real-time crime analysis.

There are additional police officers patrolling in two western Massachusetts cities now following a police academy graduation. 

Thirty-one men and women marched smartly forward to the front of an auditorium, swore an oath to become police officers, and then one-by-one stepped on stage to have badges pinned to their chests.  Proud relatives, friends, and veteran police officers in the auditorium took pictures, recorded videos, and cheered.

In his first year on the job Springfield, Massachusetts Police Commissioner John Barbieri said he has made progress toward making the police department more efficient and effective.  He plans to introduce more innovation into stopping crime in the state’s third-largest city.   

The New York City Police Department has announced it has started to use a gunshot detection system.  The rollout of the technology in the nation’s largest police department comes seven years after the police department in Springfield, Massachusetts started using the system called ShotSpotter.   

ShotSpotter uses acoustic sensors to pinpoint the location of gunfire and transmit the information within seconds to police dispatchers and to laptop computers in police cruisers. A map on the computer screen shows where the gun was fired and there is an audio recording of the shots.