Season in review: Traffic and parking an issue for Palm Beach police; fire rescue not immune

The Palm Beach Police Department was busy this season — with parking and traffic being of particular concern.

The department’s officers issued 11,628 parking citations from Oct. 1 through April 30, spokesman Capt. William Rothrock said. Of those, 2,221 were issued on Worth Avenue; 851 were issued on Royal Poinciana Way or Sunset and Sunrise avenues; 1,162 were issued at Midtown Beach; and 371 were issued at Phipps Ocean Park, he said.

“We’ve been working with our local partners and other departments in the town to make headway on the traffic issues and look for solutions,” Rothrock said. Town officials are working on a plan to improve access to parking for residents and visitors. Police Chief Nicolas Caristo committed this season to having a dedicated parking enforcement officer on Worth Avenue, Rothrock said.

The department this year formed its Behavioral Science Unit, putting an added focus on mental health and providing more regular and in-depth follow-up on certain calls. “That’s continued to be successful for us,” Rothrock said.

The team has helped with another public safety issue in Palm Beach: The population of people without housing. The department has received “a fair bit of complaints in that area,” Rothrock said. Some of that population are regulars on the island, while others are passing through, he said.

“Those complaints have arisen, and then we’ve tried to manage that along with the community’s desires for safety, security and the overall quality of life here,” Rothrock said.

An ordinance approved by the Town Council last August that closes Bradley and Lake Drive parks and the Lake Trail has "given us a tool to keep those places clear and safe at night,” he said. There has been one arrest and another violation issued for violation of the new rule, he said.

New to the town since just before this season: A 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E, the department’s first fully electric vehicle. The $51,600 car is assigned to Palm Beach’s traffic unit, Rothrock said. The department has been adding hybrid vehicles to its regular patrol fleet for years as those cars come up for replacement, he said.

“The department is always looking forward to ways we can improve safety and security in town,” Rothrock said. “To that end, we always try to encourage people, if they see something, say something. … We don’t know about what we don’t know about.”

Even if a resident or visitor isn’t sure if something is legitimate or a real threat, it’s better to err on the side of caution and notify police, he said.

“We are very fortunate to have an amazing, supportive community here in the town of Palm Beach,” Rothrock said. “That partnership is what helps keep everything safe over here.”

Here’s a look at some of the top issues and incidents seen on the island.

Incidents

• Palm Beach police this season continued to grapple with what has become a perennial issue: vehicle burglaries and thefts.

“The numbers aren’t extreme for us, but it is a problem we’re trying to get a handle on with the community’s help,” said Rothrock.

Caristo cautioned residents early in the season that they need to lock their vehicles and take the keys with them — two steps that will make breaking into those vehicles much more difficult. In March, six vehicles were stolen in a two-week stretch, two from the same house on the same night. Police said nine vehicles were stolen in Palm Beach in the first three months of this year.

• A 23-year-old Riviera Beach man was arrested and charged by town police in late November after he stole a Mercedes from one house, then broke into another — just an hour later.

• Also in November, three people were arrested after fleeing a traffic stop, speeding through Midtown and crashing into a pole, a stop sign and a wall.

• In January, police reported an increase in coyote sightings on the island. Coyotes are part of Florida's ecosystem, and their presence on the island helps to manage rodent and small animal populations, the police department said.

• A 44-year-old man caused a stir when he took a nude walk down Worth Avenue in March. The man was arrested on several charges including indecent exposure.

• In January, a South Dakota man was arrested after a stolen gun and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition were found in his car during a traffic stop.

• At the end of April, two men were arrested after police say they targeted shoppers leaving Royal Poinciana Plaza who were carrying iconic bright orange Hermès shopping bags. The stolen items were recovered when the men were arrested, police said.

Fire Rescue update

Traffic also has posed an issue for Palm Beach Fire Rescue crews, said Assistant Chief Sean Baker. “We’re just navigating the traffic,” he said. “We really do appreciate when people can yield for Fire Rescue vehicles.”

There were a handful of both commercial and residential fires during the season, he said.

A recent large commercial fire about a month ago “caused a lot of damage” on 150 Worth Ave., Baker said.

The biggest trend the department has noticed lately is that the call volume is not dropping as it typically would after the traditional end of the season, Baker said. “We are having some traffic accidents, we’re having some medical calls, a lot of traumas,” he said. “There is definitely an uptick.”

More people are staying year-round and there are more visitors, in part accounting for the steady volume of calls, he said.

Construction continues on the North Fire Rescue Station, an estimated $8 million project that Baker said should be completed by the end of 2024. With the building’s status as a historic landmark, the town has met with state lawmakers and applied for grant money to help cover the cost of the project, he said.

The department is most proud of its recent rollout of new patient reporting software, Baker said. The new platform, ImageTrend, ties directly in with local hospitals so Fire Rescue crews can share electronic patient care records with hospitals, and then receive records in return. The program is part of a bigger platform, Kno2, that can connect to patients’ doctors.

More: Palm Beach Firefighters practice extricating crash dummies from severely damaged cars

“It really modernizes our reporting software, and we can get a lot of data out of it,” Baker said. “Most importantly, the EMS is part of the whole patient and doctor continuum now.”

The previous platform was more than 25 years old, and there was not a lot of usable data that could be pulled from it, he said. Over the summer, Fire Rescue crews will receive updated training on rope rescues, Baker said.

“Our mission is to get out and help as many people as possible,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Season in review: Traffic and parking an issue for Palm Beach police; fire rescue not immune