New chief of police inspects barracks Poulin calls for more traffic enforcement

BANGOR – The head of the Maine State Police on Wednesday called for a renewed emphasis on traffic enforcement intended to reduce the accidents that cost the lives of several hundred people each year.

“I’d like to find a way to get us back into what I consider to be a crucial part of our mission,” Col. Craig A. Poulin, chief of the Maine State Police, said at the Armed Forces Reserve Center, addressing the 22 troopers who represent Troop E, the state police detachment based in Orono that covers Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

Poulin spoke to the troopers as part of a yearly inspection he has reinstituted since his appointment as chief in March, a decades-long tradition that had been held only sporadically in recent years.

By Wednesday, Poulin already had visited barracks in northern and southern Maine. The day’s agenda included the Orono barracks and Troop J in Ellsworth, with visits to barracks in Thomaston and Skowhegan still remaining.

The chief also has visited other divisions of his department, including the criminal investigation division, the state crime lab and the State Bureau of Identification, which houses criminal records.

Acknowledging that the troopers are working under trying conditions, Poulin said the department needs to find new ways of working, from gathering information to increasing partnerships with other police agencies and nonpolice agencies, such as the Maine Department of Transportation.

He said such goals are realistic ones.

“I’m not going to be asking people for the impossible,” Poulin said.

Such an infusion in traffic enforcement comes at a time when criminal and incident calls have increased, yet the manpower to respond to these issues hasn’t and in fact has gone down. Of a complement of 441 positions in the state police, 20 are vacant, three more troopers are serving active military duty and at least three more are being called up, according to the state police.

“Calls are going up, expectations are going up, and we don’t have any more people than we had,” Poulin said.

That has meant troopers don’t have as much time to dedicate to traffic enforcement, even though deaths from automobile accidents outnumber domestic violence deaths by more than 10 to 1 in Maine.

“In trying to stay ahead of the calls, and just the piles of stuff that we do, highway [enforcement] sometimes tends to take a back seat,” Poulin said.

Of the 14 to 20 homicides seen in Maine in any given year, about half are from domestic violence. And while he urged the troopers to keep plugging away at efforts to curtail domestic violence, Poulin said many more people die in automobile-related accidents.

“We kill 200 to 220 people a year in motor vehicle crashes,” Poulin said.

One solution being considered, the chief said, is bringing back the “fly-in squadron” approach, where a small group of troopers would team up and be brought in to focus on a specific area of crime or concern in an area, freeing up the regular troopers to concentrate on traffic enforcement.

The inspection was as much a look at the future as an assessment of how the troopers are doing now and instilling a sense of pride.

Earlier Wednesday in the parking lot of the military center, three lines of spotless cruisers with a trooper standing tautly beside each vehicle awaited the review. Minutes before the colonel’s arrival, troopers were making sure everything was in order, from lining up the cars so that that the vehicles were flush to putting the final shine on the windows and washing the whitewalls on the tires.

During the inspection, Poulin and a handful of lieutenants scanned the vehicles, opened doors and inspected bags and boxes containing equipment and firearms in the open trunks. They spoke to each of the uniformed officers who stood with their hands behind their backs.

State police Sgt. Mark Brooks, the first to come under the colonel’s scrutiny, liked the idea of the inspection, saying before the inspection that both it and the meeting that followed allowed time for troopers to talk to Poulin, a man who Brooks described as personable and willing to listen.

“One of the things he’s trying to do is make a little face time with his troopers,” Brooks said.

The officer is one of the troopers headed for military duty and will be leaving in October for Iraq. Brooks said he appreciated the colonel’s offer to help his family out whenever possible in his absence.

Poulin also stopped to talk to Trooper Michael Johnston, asking him how things were going and whether he’s busy.

“Very busy,” Johnston replied. It’s an answer Poulin knows all too well, telling the troopers later that he appreciated that they are working under challenging conditions. Despite the difficulties, Johnston told Poulin that he is where he wants to be.

“I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world,” Johnston said.