By: Stephanie Prokop
MANSFIELD The township Police Department is looking to assume full responsibility for township police coverage and phase out the help it has been receiving from the state police.
According to a written statement prepared by Director of Public Safety Richard Bendel, the Mansfield Police Department is a full-time, full-service police agency with 10 full-time officers and two part-time officers, and on Oct. 15 it began the final stages of "coming out from under the state police umbrella."
As part of the change, officers will be trained in handling advanced crash investigation techniques, and training for the handling of serious crimes that occur within the township.
"We don’t have too many serious crimes in town, other than some routine burglaries, and routine break-ins. Earlier in the year we had an aggravated assault, and the state police handled that," Mr. Bendel said. Last year there were two traffic fatalities on Route 206 in addition to one murder.
An Investigations Bureau also is being created, and the Police Department is looking to hire an officer as a full-time detective.
Despite the phasing out of state police coverage, Mr. Bendel said he doesn’t think that the officers will be overwhelmed.
"Over the last couple of years, the workload hasn’t been all that extreme, and so it isn’t that going to be that big of an impact for us," he said.
Mansfield is looking to be completely independent of the state police for serious/fatal crash scene investigation as early as March 2007. The only areas of the township that the state police will still patrol are the Turnpike and Interstate 295.
As far as investigation of accident scenes goes, Mr. Bendel said Mansfield has acquired a lot of the tools necessary to properly do the job.
"Currently we have a lot of basic tools, so we could do the basic investigation, but if it’s a complex scene, Florence Township still helps out," said Mr. Bendel, "We want to do the full-time job."

