Winthrop police logged 218 calls in the week of Sunday, October 25 through Saturday, October 31, according to the department’s weekly journal, a 52-page dispatch log from the Metro North Regional Emergency Communications Center that the town posted on its police logs page. The week produced one arrest, on outstanding warrants, along with a hit-and-run outside a Main Street cafe, two minor crashes involving town vehicles, a Halloween night crash that took down a utility pole on Orlando Avenue, and a string of walk-in complaints about threats, harassment and stolen packages.
The journal records what dispatchers were told and what officers reported back, not the results of any investigation. This account uses street-level locations and leaves out the names of callers, officers and anyone not charged. The log prints no name for the one person arrested. A charge is not a conviction.
The arrest
Officers went to a three-family house on Shirley Street at 3:33 p.m. on Sunday, October 25 to serve a warrant and took a 48-year-old man who lives there into custody on three warrant charges. The entry shows officers requesting medical aid for him, canceling it, then requesting it again at the station after a supervisor noted that the prisoner’s own request had not been withdrawn; an ambulance was sent to the station at 5 p.m. The log lists the charges only as warrant arrests and does not say what the underlying cases were.
About half an hour after the arrest, a woman walked into the station lobby and told an officer she had been hit by someone in Winthrop an hour earlier. She would not name the person, saying she did not want them in trouble, declined medical attention and declined to give her own information, and asked only that the incident be logged in case something else happened. Earlier that Sunday morning, at 8:22 a.m., a man came to headquarters to surrender his license to carry firearms and his guns; the log says a report was to follow and gives no reason.
Crashes and the cars that hit town vehicles
A driver in a state vehicle, a black 2025 Ford Escape, called from the parking lot of a cafe at 19 Main Street at 7:01 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28 to report that another car had struck it and driven off into Winthrop down Main Street. There were no injuries and the caller could not give a make, model or plate. The day before, at 6:57 a.m., a caller at Lewis Avenue and River Road reported that a vehicle had hit a pole and left, with debris in the road and damage to the lower half of the pole; the DPW was called to clear it.
Two town vehicles were on the receiving end of minor crashes on Friday morning, October 30. At 7:29 a.m., an officer monitoring traffic for town employees and students from a parked, unoccupied cruiser in the municipal lot on Winthrop Street reported that a white 2020 Chevrolet Express school bus had struck the cruiser, causing minor damage with no medical needed. Twenty minutes later the fire department reported that one of its vehicles had struck a parked car on Locust Street; an officer left a note for the owner.
The week’s most serious crash came at 10:20 p.m. on Halloween, when a car went into a National Grid pole on Orlando Avenue and a second car was also struck. Fire and EMS responded, the fire department judged the pole stable, National Grid was notified and both vehicles were towed. The log does not record injuries. An hour earlier, at 7:11 p.m., someone at the Honey Dew Donuts lot on Shirley Street reported an intoxicated man trying to drive; officers arranged a Winthrop taxi to take him home, left the car in the lot and brought the keys to the station for pickup the next day.
Halloween
Saturday, October 31 was the busiest day of the week with 35 entries, tied with Wednesday. At 8:15 p.m. a Sagamore Avenue resident reported that a group of 10 to 15 kids walking toward the town center had kicked her front door hard enough that it would not close, and said she had video. Officers checked the area. Late in the evening came the usual run of noise calls: several people arguing outside a Winthrop Street condo at 10:54 p.m., a loud party on Edgehill Road at 11:31 p.m. and a loud music complaint on Court Road at 11:56 p.m., the last two closed with the peace restored.
Medical calls
At 3:17 a.m. on Tuesday, October 27, a 20-year-old man was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital from Douglas Street with possible alcohol poisoning. On Wednesday morning an 85-year-old man on Grovers Avenue was taken to Mass General after a fall; his wife reported him breathing but not responsive, and the log later notes he was alert and had not lost consciousness. At 12:18 p.m. that day a health care provider called for a well-being check on a resident of the Viking Gardens housing on Putnam Street after the line went dead mid-call, and an ambulance was sent. Just before midnight on Sunday a prisoner was transported to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, with no further detail.
Threats, harassment and disputes
Walk-in complaints filled much of the week. On Monday afternoon staff at a school on Shirley Street reported receiving a series of harassing text messages over the weekend from a former employee and asked that it be documented. At 8:09 p.m. Monday the owner of a Winthrop Street business reported a man trying to force open her locked door and screaming through it; officers found there had been no break-in and that the matter was a parking and neighbor dispute with a man who lives across the street. On Tuesday evening a man came to the station to report an incident on the previous Friday with his ex-wife’s boyfriend, and at 10:28 p.m. another walk-in reported threats and harassment; officers went first to a Shirley Street bar, found the woman involved had left, then spoke with her on Waldemar Avenue, where she denied making threats. On Wednesday a woman reported a threatening note left on her car about her parking.
Two well-being checks on Wednesday involved families. At 12:30 a.m. a Winthrop Street man said his wife had sent three men to harm him and that he had gone to check on his son; his mother called separately with the same account, and officers checked Sunset Road, where he said he had seen a truck. At 3:23 p.m. a Lewis Avenue resident reported a possible verbal domestic across the street and a woman leaving with a baby in a carrier; an officer spoke to both parties, found the dispute was verbal, and the man agreed to stay elsewhere for the night. On Thursday the owner of an apartment building on Grovers Avenue reported a man who had been trespassed from the property in the parking lot trying to reach his mother, who did not want contact; he left before officers arrived and was warned by phone, including about his license status.
Packages, cash and alarms
A Crest Avenue woman reported packages stolen from her porch on Friday evening and was told to come to the station to file a report. Fifteen minutes later officers were back on Crest Avenue after she was heard yelling at a man she accused of taking them; he turned out to be a resident of the building who had nothing to do with it, and she told officers the packages had gone missing over two days. That same evening a man reported losing $1,800 in cash he had just withdrawn from Citizens Bank while walking around town. On Halloween a resident asked for a police report that FedEx had requested to back up his complaint about a package delivered to the wrong address.
The motion alarm in the courtesy booth at the Winthrop Marketplace on Revere Street went off at 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; each time officers found the doors secured and no sign of forced entry. On Sunday afternoon a motion alarm at the Fort Banks Elementary School gym door sent two officers through all three floors of the building, which were clear, before a keyholder arrived. An entry alarm at the Elks lodge on Washington Avenue at 1:22 a.m. Wednesday led officers in through the kitchen door, which they could not secure from outside and left as they found it.
Also in the log
On Monday an officer and the school resource officer set up a directed patrol at Winthrop High School and the middle school to get dirt bikes under control. A Brookfield Road homeowner reported a white van driving slowly past the park and shining a light into it on Wednesday night; the officer found the van, a plumbing contractor’s vehicle with a residential parking pass, and spoke with the driver. On Thursday night a Cottage Park Road caller found it suspicious that two boys were going door to door at 9:30 p.m. offering to rake leaves for money; an officer found them at Johnson Avenue and Cottage Park Road and watched them get picked up. A Perkins Street man said a cat on his back porch attacked him Thursday afternoon; the animal control officer found it belonged to the resident’s brother and asked for its rabies record. A Revere Street woman who had gone to urgent care in Chelsea reported a pit bull bite on Friday, but the dog’s owner said the animal had been with him all day, and she later said the dog had only barked and frightened her.
Officers towed a New York rental car blocking a hydrant at Shirley and Sturgis streets on Monday, a car with a canceled registration from the Town Landing lot on Tuesday, a Honda CR-V with a revoked registration and no insurance at Cutler Street and Shore Drive on Friday, whose owner will be mailed a citation, and a car that had sat on the 72-hour list at the Town Landing on Saturday. Directed patrols made up 50 of the week’s 218 entries, including overnight parking enforcement sweeps on Shirley Street, Veterans Road and Summit Avenue. Officers made 37 motor vehicle stops, 11 of them on Veterans Road, issuing 22 citations and 16 verbal warnings. There were 18 911 hang-ups, four of which were misdials where the caller refused police, fire and medical aid, and crossing guards or officers covered the Revere Street and Kennedy Road school crossing twice a day.
The department posts the journal weekly, usually on the Sunday or Monday after the week ends.
