WORCESTER—In Worcester so far this year, five lives have been lost to homicide, with guns playing a role in four of these tragedies. But it’s not about an influx of firearms or a surge in gun-related crime. The real issue is that a handful of repeat offenders are committing these crimes. This has been the mantra of Interim Police Chief Paul Saucier since he stepped into the commanding role in September 2023.
A tragic shooting in early March that claimed the lives of a mother and her daughter riled up the community, and only further fueled Saucier’s insistence that gun incidents need to be addressed more effectively and thoroughly.
Shortly after the incident, Saucier unveiled the Worcester Police Department’s annual crime statistics report, which includes numbers on violent crime that involve guns. During his report to the city council, he stressed that the belief in a rise in street guns and violence is a misconception. The real issue is repeat offenders, many of whom are “known to police.”
As frustration mounted within law enforcement and the community, Saucier said it fueled his determination to create a dedicated unit solely focused on investigating gun-related crimes.
“It’s a small amount that’s committing all the violence in the city,” he told city councilors. “Those are the people that need to be targeted and put in prison and then this will stop because everybody out there is not shooting guns.”
First night, first incident for new gun unit
On the night of April 15, Worcester police headed to a ShotSpotter gunfire alert, leading them swiftly to the area of Channing Street. The response resulted in two arrests and the confiscation of a Glock 42 gun capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition.
Two nights later, around 10 p.m., detectives patrolled Endicott and Vernon streets. They observed a car failing to stop, rolling into traffic, and accelerating, resulting in sparks flying from its underbelly as it hit a road dip. Shortly after, a man was spotted running from a nearby crash on Providence Street. Detectives apprehended 20-year-old Joshua Santos, charging him with multiple offenses including a stop sign violation, leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, reckless driving, and failure to comply with police orders.
Detectives in the WPD’s Real Time Crime Center later viewed the path of the vehicle on video, which led them to search the area along with a K9 and recover a large-capacity firearm there.
The two incidents marked the WPD’s inaugural operation of the Crime Gun Intelligence Unit (CGIU). Saucier’s elated to get the new unit up and running and said it was overwhelmingly supported by the city to do so.
“This was an easy sell,” Saucier said in an interview with the Worcester Guardian last week. “If you think about it, Google any person you arrest and you’ll likely see a prior offense. We all know who these people are. I mean, I still know who these people are. And I think that’s a problem.
“I’ve got to say, this isn’t something that is occurring just in Worcester. This is nationwide where you see repeat offenders. We work closely with [Worcester District Attorney] Joe Early, and he does a great job keeping offenders behind bars, but a lot is out of his hands. There are sentencing guidelines. When we arrest someone and they have a machine gun and they are out on an ankle bracelet, that’s frustrating. And we have seen that within the year.”
Inspired by other jurisdictions across the country and in the state (Boston and Springfield, in particular), Saucier said the success that comes with it is overwhelmingly evident.
“There are many agencies in the country doing the same thing, and most are tied to shots fired gun detection,” said Saucier. “We know within 80 percent where the shots are coming from [with ShotSpotter technology]. In 2023, there were 71 gunshots picked up within the ShotSpotter area. Of those 71, 40 times no one called the police. We would have never known where the crime scene was, and if you don’t know where it occurred, it’s hard to investigate. That’s the importance of the ShotSpotter. For obvious reasons, some people are afraid [to say anything]. Some don’t know what a gunshot sounds like, and some don’t want to be involved.”
The CGIU’s primary function is threefold, according to Saucier: to eradicate crime, seize guns that are illegal or involved in a crime, and enhance penalties for repeat offenders.
With gun crime being a larger component of violent crime, Saucier said the department has been studying the idea for a specialized unit for many years, at least since adopting ShotSpotter technology in 2014. Shortly after Saucier was appointed interim chief, talks began with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to make it a reality.
“When you go to the scene of these shootings and see the trauma associated with them, and see the families…people in those neighborhoods, they are under siege,” said Saucier. “We have to do everything in our power to stop that. The way we do that is by collaborating with partners. When you join resources you have better results.”
Assembling the unit
While Saucier declined to specify the size of the CGIU, several reports have indicated it includes four officers and a sergeant. The WPD’s budget was not affected, Saucier explained, because those who were assigned to the unit requested the shift to the new department and are particularly skilled in the area.
“The officers who are assigned [to the CGIU] have a special ability to investigate gun crimes,” said Saucier. “They have an uncanny ability to sniff out guns. That’s why they were put in this unit. They were taken from Gang Unit, Operations, the Detective Bureau and we had one assigned for a few months to the ATF Task Force.”
Now, officers are given the wingspan to focus on gun crimes full-time, rather than being pulled in different directions, sometimes unable to dig into the intricate details of an incident that would benefit from doing so.
“When you’re on patrol and you need that extra time, but you have other calls coming in, it makes it difficult,” said Saucier. “It’s the same thing in the Detective Bureau, where, for instance, they are responding to a shooting where they had a robbery or a burglary…now when you have a gun incident, when investigators can give 100 percent of their time, you should have better results.”
Measuring success
How to evaluate the success of the Crime Gun Intelligence Unit is relatively straight-forward. The WPD, said Saucier, uses the number of non-fatal shootings as the primary metrics to measure its effectiveness, comparing these numbers to similar sized cities and to Worcester’s own history.
“You could go by the homicides, but that doesn’t tell the correct picture,” said Saucier. “When you arrive [on the scene] you don’t always see a smoking gun. The investigation has to go through a process—analyzing shell casings, speaking with witnesses, and canvassing for video. For example, last year, we had 116 weapons confiscated; three of those were responsible for 21 gunshots. Every gun you get off the street makes an impact. We don’t have hundreds of people out there pulling triggers. You could have one person responsible for eight shootings.”
“We can’t do this alone”
Collaboration with local, regional and even national law enforcement agencies is a crucial piece in the establishment of the CGIU, which works in conjunction with the ATF, Massachusetts State Police, the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“When an offender meets certain criteria, we look to prosecute federally,” said Saucier, “and it is usually a longer sentence. If we work together from the outset, it’s easier to do that.”
The building blocks for Worcester’s gun unit were laid last November when a Worcester detective was moved to the ATF full time but Saucier said he had been heavily involved in instituting the “ShotSpotter stuff” for the past ten years.
“This was my goal, and I’ve said this many times,” said Saucier, “that there is huge value in using additional departments. We need an officer that is sworn in as an ATF agent who can investigate crimes throughout the state. Eighty percent of these weapons come from outside of Massachusetts. This way, we can be out there and people can bring a gun into Worcester and we can investigate. If you’re just ‘local,’ you can’t do that. And with this gun intelligence unit, you’re able to have these bullet casings analyzed right away. We send them to the crime lab, and the guns get placed through AFT. If we have shell casings that match a gun in Brockton, now we know we’ve got people in Brockton coming here.”
The community’s attention and involvement is a huge part of eradicating gun violence, said Saucier, who stressed that parents must talk with their children about gun crime. Whether directly or indirectly, the issue affects everyone’s family.
“We can’t do this alone,” said Saucier. “When kids hear gunfire that’s coming from their neighborhood, parents need to speak with these kids. And people need to call if they see something or know something. We need to recanvass areas where there were ShotSpotter alerts. Think about it…it’s the middle of the night, you have a flashlight looking for casings the size of a thimble. We are going to start using door hangers and then you know that we’ve been there in the neighborhood. This lets people know that we care. We are here, and we’re investigating. No one should have to live with gunfire in their neighborhoods.”
Charlene Arsenault can be reached at carsenault@theworcesterguardian.org
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