CAMP EDWARDS, Mass. - Don't be surprised if a Massachusetts State Police trooper pulls you over and gives you a ticket if you're driving faster than you should be or if you fail to stop for a stop sign these days on the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
A community action team of six troopers is patrolling the expansive post on upper Cape Cod because the military commanders there have seen too many people who are driving unsafely - disregarding the posted speed limits and failing to stop at marked intersections.
"The amnesty period is over. Now we're writing citations," said Sgt. Doug Lynch, who leads the state police team, in early September.
It is unusual, nationwide, for civilian police agencies to patrol military facilities, acknowledged Col. Francis McGinn, commander of the Massachusetts Army National Guard Training Site here. McGinn is also a full-time state police sergeant who leads a fire and explosion investigation unit in southeastern Massachusetts.
The National Guard and the state police have a good relationship, and assigning a community action team to the post seemed to be the sensible thing to do," McGinn explained. The Coast Guard has the biggest presence, and other government agencies also have facilities on the post. Other people drive across the post on their way from one part of the Cape to another.
The state police team is augmenting civilian and military security personnel who staff the entry points on the post and watch over National Guard and Coast Guard facilities, it was explained.
The state police began patrolling the post last October, Lynch explained. They issued warnings and parked their patrol cars in highly visible locations in hopes that motorists would slow down and stop when they were supposed to. That didn't work as well as it was hoped, Lynch said, so the troopers began handing out tickets on Sept. 3.
This is not a first for the Bay State. The state police have patrolled the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area in northern Massachusetts for six years, said Lynch who is sympathetic to men and women in the military.
"We don't want to be writing tickets for people who are defending their country," he observed, "but when commanders keep complaining about people speeding and running stop signs, something has to be done."