Town Beach Police Records Made Public
12 incidents in 2024.
The Nottingham Police Department responded quickly to the Nottingham Blog’s right-to-know request for police records associated with Town Beach in 2024.
It was reported to the Board of Selectmen that there were 21 or 24 calls associated with Town Beach during 2024. This claim was found not to be substantiated in the police records. The records show 21 actions, not calls. A single call can result in multiple actions. Most commonly in these records, there’s an incident of trespassing - that’s one record - then a few days later, the trespasser is served with a no-trespassing order - that’s another record.
One of the calls was just a citizen asking for information about the beach. Another call was about a drunk kayaker who happened to be in the vicinity of Town Beach. One involved hunters tracking a deer they had wounded.
Net of these, there were 12 incidents associated with the beach.
None were during hours when the beach was open - hours in which the proposed attendant would be there. However, there were two incidents of people being locked in after closing. One was a non-resident. They received a no-trespassing order.
One record was about cars parked on private land near the intersection of Flutter Street and Deerfield Road early in the morning. The occupants were suspected of being at the beach, but were not observed to be there. The police called the owners of the cars.
This incident was one of six that occurred during the season in which the beach was open. Of the remaining three incidents, two involved trespassers who were not caught. One involved three juveniles swimming at the beach after closing time. They were caught.
The six incidents during the off-season were all for trespassing. One trespasser caught on camera had previously been told to stay off the property. This person was not apprehended. There’s no record of the police taking any action. Three others involved cars being observed parked at the entrance. Of these, only once were police able to make contact with the trespasser. The remaining two incidents were by foot. In both of these cases, the police were able to make contact with the trespassers.
In no case was anyone fined.
Data summarized here:
The police reports may be downloaded here:
Although I am not asking to make more work for the PD, wouldn’t a more accurate picture be up until your request was made?
Thank you for the summary! Super insightful as always