Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/30/2022
HADLEY – The Hampshire Mall is the home for a new office operated by a trio of law enforcement groups that will aim to serve as a resource for citizens, especially seniors, to ask questions and share information in an effort to identify and avoid scams.
The Hadley Police Department (HPD), Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office and Northwestern District Attorney’s Office make up the trio, known collectively as TRIAD. Representatives from each group opened the office with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 23. Sherriff’s Office Crime Prevention officer Dave Fenton said the purpose of the ceremony was twofold.
“One is to do the grand opening of this office and a partnership between the Sheriff’s Office, the [Hadley] Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office and the community,” Fenton said. “Also, we’re signing a cooperative agreement between the Pelham Police Department, Pelham Fire Department, the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office for a new TRIAD in the town of Pelham so that’s another nice thing.”
Hampshire County Sheriff Patrick Cahillane said the office would be a space for seniors to stop by, share information, educate themselves and develop a safety plan.
“In a place like Hampshire County, we have to work together because everybody has limits on their budgets,” Cahillane said in an interview with Reminder Publishing. “And the criminal justice system is best served when you take a team approach and everybody is at the table, the seniors are at the table. This is a wonderful endeavor from our standpoint. We had an office in the mall back in the 1990s and it closed down over time, but we felt it was a good program to open back up and the offer was made that we had the ability to move in there at no cost to the taxpayer. It gives us a connection to all of these agencies and the community.”
Cahillane said TRIAD is a model of community public safety that is designed to prevent the victimization of seniors, which is especially important in a modern world filled with scam attempts and other financial crimes.
One such crime was recently avoided in Hadley after an elderly resident of Athol reported Gaurang Contractor attempted to make her purchase $330,000 in gold bars from Hannoush Jewelers in Hadley. According to a Facebook post on April 11 by the HPD, local police collaborated with the FBI and Northampton Police to trick the suspect into believing that the gold would be waiting for pickup in a car parked at Texas Roadhouse in Hadley. Contractor entered the undercover car, collected the boxes of fake gold and was promptly arrested.
“These are the kinds of things that we want to educate our community about,” said HPD Chief of Police Mike Mason. “This would have been a devastating loss of an entire life savings. This type of TRIAD outreach will be very helpful in educating our community about these types of things. Unfortunately, we see scams far too often.”
At the ribbon cutting, Mason said he was most excited for the extra collaboration the office will encourage with other communities across the county. Mason said he recognized officers and firefighters from surrounding municipalities in the audience and invited them all to work with TRIAD to “build those bridges with the community that we serve.”
Before the ribbon was officially cut, District Attorney David Sullivan praised the efforts of the TRIAD program over its lifetime.
“It’s a wonderful testament to the TRIAD Program that it’s still expanding,” Sullivan said. “It’s celebrating its 30th year and it’s had an evolution over time that’s gotten better and better.”