The Wrightsville Beach Police Department will enter the 2016 tourist season with new officers, new leadership and new technology, police chief Dan House told residents during his quarterly Chat with the Chief on April 21.
The department experienced numerous resignations last summer, which left the force of 25 short eight positions at one point. Key openings included the captains’ spots, which were vacated by retiring Capt. M. Core and Capt. P. Burdette, who accepted the chief’s job at the Beaufort Police Department.
House recently filled those two spots from within by promoting Lt. J. Bishop and Lt. V. Blanton. The two lieutenants had already taken over many of the captains’ duties, House said, helping to fill the “huge hole in the agency” left by Burdette’s exit last October.
They did such a good job with their temporary duties, House decided to make the situation permanent.
He has also filled nearly all of his officer positions, but while he’s entering tourist season with more manpower, he’s had to address their limited experience with the public safety challenges encountered during the island’s busiest days.
“Half of our officers have never worked a summer in Wrightsville Beach before,” he said.
He’ll give them exposure by rotating them on and off the beach strand instead of assigning two officers to the beach all summer. The beach strand officers mostly enforce public safety issues like surfers without leashes and glass on the beach, he added.
He’s also adding a shift from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. to specifically address late-afternoon beach strand problems which then typically migrate over to the downtown bar district. The officer will start duty on the beach strand to cover the gap between when lifeguards leave at 5 p.m. and the sun sets, House said.
Later that night, the officer will be assigned to the bar district with the singular goal of “handling quality-of-life issues like littering and noise,” House said, adding that the officer will be on bike or in plain clothing.
“Proactive enforcement will be their marching order,” he said.
Several residents who live in the bar district voiced concerns and offered a few suggestions to deal with the noise, vandalism and litter they said the bar crowd causes on or near their properties.
Even after the bars close, they said, intoxicated patrons continue partying at nearby residences. They suggested the police could reduce that by putting an unmanned “dummy car” on a side street.
They also asked about acquiring “no trespassing” signs for their yards, which House said they could do, although he pointed out trespassing is harder for his officers to enforce at short-term rental properties. But property owners renting short-term could still put a sign in their yard, he said, and the sign alone is usually enough to deter trespassers.
In addition to new personnel, House hopes new technology will make the beach safer this summer. The Wrightsville Beach Police Department recently launched its new public safety app, which House said would facilitate much better communication between the public and the police.
The app will give people a simple way to alert police about non-emergency situations, he said. But he’s even more excited about the app’s ability to let police alert the public about situations like special events, inclement weather, road closures and missing children, which he said is a fairly common occurrence on the beach strand.
If a child is missing, he said, the police are able to send a notification to everyone in Wrightsville Beach who has downloaded one of the 40 or 50 public safety, education or tourism apps in the system. The system currently has about 1 million users, House added.
“It will be a really cool way to push out information when we absolutely have to,” he said.
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