Billerica Police | MA

BILLERICA — Executive Director Matthew Page-Shelton and Chief Roy Frost are pleased to report that Front Line Initiative and Billerica Police Department participated in Billerica Wellness’ Family Well-Being Festival.

Held on the front lawn of the Billerica Council on Aging on a warm and sunny afternoon last month, the festival included 30 vendors who provide mental health and well-being related services, as well as town agencies and organizations, such as Billerica Substance Awareness Prevention, and the Billerica Community Pantry.

Local organizations including the Greater Lowell Health Alliance, Lowell General Hospital Behavioral Health, and Therapy Dog International were also on hand.

Entertainment included face painting, a balloon artist, and live music.

The festival was organized by Billerica Health and Wellness, with Front Line Initiative serving as a lead sponsor.

The event was aimed at not only providing connections to important services, but also at facilitating conversations about well being and mental health and reducing stigma surrounding mental health.

“Sponsoring events like this are a major part of the Front Line’s mission in breaking the silence on mental well-being and finding creative, engaging ways of having these conversations in the communities we serve,” said Director Page-Shelton. “This event was an opportunity to engage the community of Billerica in a family friendly way and we were honored to take part.”

“This community has worked diligently to face the challenges and realities of mental illness head on. Using a collaborative approach with assistance from the Front Line Initiative, the Billerica town government has engaged on multiple levels to train staff on recognizing the signs and symptoms of mental illness. This preparation has allowed your local government to better align its resources for the overall health of the community,” said Chief Frost. “Today your Police officers are better trained and equipped to safely respond to the daily challenges presented in modern policing”

To access online behavioral health and substance misuse disorder resources compiled by the Front Line Initiative, developed in partnership with CredibleMind, click here.

Longtime Dispatcher Maureen “Micky” Lamarre has been promoted to Communications Center Supervisor.

BILLERICA — Chief Roy Frost and the Billerica Police Department are pleased to announce that veteran dispatcher Maureen “Micky” Lamarre has been promoted to be the department’s Communications Center Supervisor, a new position mean to improve communications and service from Billerica Police.

Lamarre, a mother of two children, one of whom is on the autism spectrum, began her dispatching career in Dracut, working for Dracut Police from 1997 to 2015, when she joined Billerica Police. Lamarre also worked for Lowell Police for two years.

In addition to having 25 years of experience, Lamarre is an eager problem-solver, and has extensive training in technical aspects of dispatching, such as Emergency Medical Dispatch, next generation 911, and using all the various databases needed to lookup driver’s licenses, license plates, and checking for warrants and criminal backgrounds.

“Dispatching is far more advanced today, especially with next generation 911, which we have and are continuing to expand upon. It’s not the same dispatch it was years ago when they were just answering the phone. This is career work and it requires training in everything from emergency medical dispatch to the use of the 911 system, and a lot of quality assurance and control,” said Chief Frost. “The data that comes into dispatch now is so much more robust, and if properly used it gives us the ability to provide real-time situational awareness to officers, which makes them safer.”

Lt. Commander Greg Katz, who until now has served as a supervisor to the Communications Center even though his experience and training is more focused on law enforcement, said creating a specialized supervisor position to oversee the communications center has long been a goal of the department. He pointed out that dispatchers are often the first point of contact for members of the community who need police services.

Lt. Commander Katz said dispatching has come a long way from the days when rank and file patrol officers would answer calls and dispatch their colleagues.

“Dispatching has grown to require a very specialized skill set, training set, and the technology that’s being used now isn’t what the average patrol officer is trained to use,” Lt. Commander Katz said.

“We want to thank the town administration and Town Meeting for supporting this in the budget. Mid-level management is sometimes a convenient area to save money, but you bite off your nose to spite your face in some respects,” Chief Frost said. “We have over 43,000 residents now and there are a lot of phone calls and communications for us to handle, and the communications center is also the nerve center of this department, so it’s important we have someone giving full-time attention to the duties this operation requires.”

Lamarre’s duties will include day to day management of the communications center, supervising employees, scheduling, overseeing training, and recruitment and retention of dispatchers. Lamarre’s new position will also create more frequent opportunities for quality control in the communications center.

Lamarre was a police matron and special police officer in Dracut before she started her dispatching career, and once she joined Billerica Police she became a police matron and special police officer there as well.
“I enjoy (dispatching) because there’s a lot of multi-tasking involved and I enjoy talking to people and helping them, as well as problem solving” Lamarre said.

But Lamarre also said many people don’t understand how much is involved in modern dispatching and police communication.

“We’re taking calls, dispatching calls, both non-emergency and 911. We handle walk-ins at the front window of the Police Department, and we also enter calls into a computer aided dispatch system, provide emergency medical dispatch services — instructions for those with medical emergencies — and we’re also running motor vehicle license plates and driver’s licenses and looking for warrants,” she said.

Lamarre is expected to start her new role in the coming weeks, once a new dispatcher has been brought on board to fill her previous position

Communications Center Supervisor Maureen Lamarre with Lt. Commander Greg Katz, who oversaw the communications center up until recently. Lt. Commander Katz said Lamarre has more extensive training and experience with dispatching best practices and technology that will help provide better service to Billerica residents.

Recent scam activity has surfaced this week in Billerica that closely resembles the “Grandparent Scam”. Although similar, there’s some differences:

• Individual receives a phone call from a caller claiming to be from your local police department. The call is often accompanied by a person in the background that sounds in distress. The caller claims their child was involved in some type of accident and uses phishing techniques to illicit information to assist them in a scam to defraud the victim.
• The criminal can also pretend to be a court official, a lawyer, a doctor at a hospital, or some other person. And we’ve also received complaints about the phony relative talking first and then handing the phone over to an accomplice…to further spin the fake tale.
• While it’s commonly called the grandparent scam, criminals may also claim to be a family friend, a niece or nephew, or another family member.