The Marblehead Police Department is a thirty-member Civil Service law- enforcement agency sworn to protect the residents, merchants, and visitors in a seacoast community north of Boston, MA. Department staff consists of a chief, captain, four lieutenants, four sergeants, and twenty officers who patrol the community in three shifts, twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Uniformed officers patr
ol the town by marked and unmarked patrol cars, motorcycle, mountain bike, and walking beats. One of the sergeants and one patrol officer work as plain-clothes detectives. One sergeant is assigned on a regular basis as the court liaison to the Lynn District Court. Three officers are assigned to a regional mutual aid unit that provides rapid law enforcement assistance to over sixty area communities. Eight highly-skilled civilians trained and certified as dispatchers by the state operate our state-of-the-art 911 center located inside a secured wing in police headquarters. These men and women handle emergency and non-emergency phone calls and monitor multiple public safety, public utility, and marine-radio frequencies and assist walk-in lobby traffic. An administrative assistant to the chief and a custodian, round out the department’s regular staff. Accountability for the town’s Animal Control division and the school traffic supervisors (crossing guards) is also delegated to the police chief. Police headquarters was originally located in the historic Old Town House on lower Washington Street. In 1961, a more modernized station was opened at its current centralized location on Gerry Street. This building also houses the prisoner lock-up which consists of four adult cells and two combination female/juvenile cells. For decades, the department provided a BLS (Basic Life Support-EMT staffed) ambulance service, as well as a police-operated harbor patrol boat that provided supervision and assistance for people utilizing the harbors and ocean waters surrounding Marblehead. After years of faithful service, both programs were disbanded as part of budget consolidations in the mid-’90s.
