Council Votes To Meet with Police On Problem of Patrolman Shortage

The Cambridge City Council yesterday took action that could eventually lead to the expansion of the city's police force and the addition of more patrolmen to regular beats throughout the City.

The Council scheduled an executive meeting for next Monday with Daniel J. Brennan, chief of police, and John J. Curry '19, the City Manager.

Councillor Daniel J. Hayes, Jr. who introduced the motion which arranged the meeting, told the nine-man body: "My personal belief is that we are not doing all we can in the area of crime prevention."

Hayes criticized "the tendency to take patrolmen off the street and put them into patrol cars."

Later he said that there are some 30 foot patrol routes in the City but that most of them were unmanned. "At night there aren't more than six men on the street," another councillor volunteered.

Hayes said there has been a general increase in "petty crime" in Cambridge and suggested that the wider use of foot patrolmen was the most effective means of preventing these types of incidents.

"Gangsterism is not our problem," he maintained. He said that most of the trouble is with youths between 15 and 25 years old.

He estimated that an addition of about 30 men to the police force might insure that all foot patrol routes in the City are manned. There are currently 235 people in the police department. About 220 are actually police officers.

To increase the effectiveness of foot patrolmen, Hayes suggested that each officer might carry a walkie-talkie.