PORTAGE, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – The Portage city council got their first look at ordinance amendments that would give their public safety department more authority to break up nuisance parties.
They don’t have a lot of them, but Public Safety Chief Matthew Wolfe says he wants their ordinance to be similar to the one in place in Kalamazoo, just in case they ever need help from other area police agencies.
“I know that Kalamazoo Township is also looking at enacting a similar ordinance because any large scale response is probably gonna involve multiple jurisdictions we want that operational consistency.”
He says the incident that prompted the amendments occurred last year, when a gathering of 200 cars appeared at the old State Farm parking lot on Portage Road, when they only had five officers on duty.
They dispersed the crowd, which headed off to Kalamazoo.
“Some of those individuals ended up at the green door distillery and that’s where we had a homicide that night so these things could get out of hand very quickly,” says Wolfe.
He says the ordinance amendments would give his officers the authority to set up police lines and clear large crowds on public and private property, when they threaten public safety.
“We hope we never have to use these but we want to get ahead of it just like May 8th 2024 wasn’t the day to start planning for a tornado we want to get ahead of these things.”
The council is scheduled to take a vote on the ordinance amendments in two weeks.
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