By Tiffany Tan/VTDigger
RUTLAND CITY — One sunny morning last week, Matt Prouty was driving down Main Street when a police dispatcher’s voice came over the car’s police radio, transmitting a report of an assault at the local Walmart store.
“A male and a female were in the self-checkout. They were not scanning all the items,” the dispatcher said. “When they were approached by staff, the female got irate and shoved a shopping cart into the associate. They got into a black Chevy.”
When Prouty heard that the suspects were heading in his general direction, he turned his vehicle around. A few minutes later, he spotted the black Chevy at an intersection. He radioed in the car’s location while trying to trail it. But he eventually lost sight of the car.
A year and a half ago, Prouty could’ve immediately turned on his police siren, chased after the car and stopped it in traffic. But that’s no longer his job.
In April of last year, after 22 years with the Rutland City Police Department, he retired from the force as a commander. On Aug. 1, he rejoined the police department as a civilian – its first “community resource specialist.”
The position, which the city created this year, was designed to reinforce the department’s dwindling number of sworn law enforcement officers. The idea is the community resource specialist could handle incidents that don’t involve criminal acts, such as disputes among neighbors, finding elderly people who’d wandered off or referring people to addiction recovery services, freeing up police officers for other work.
“We have a staffing problem,” said police department Commander Greg Sheldon, who suggested creating the new position. “So if we can reduce calls for service to our police officers, reduce some of the noncriminal calls, that’ll help take the burden off the staff we have.”
In a recent 12-month period, for instance, Rutland police received some 2,100 calls for service, according to the police department. Of the total, about 30% of the calls could’ve gone to a community resource specialist, said the department’s crime/data analyst, Nathan Thibodeau. These types of calls, which averaged 50 a month during that period, are noncriminal incidents that also have a low element of danger, Thibodeau said.
As its name suggests, the community resource specialist is also expected to connect local residents with community resources, such as social service organizations. In the process, the hope is that the person can help build a stronger relationship between Rutland police and the larger community.
The community resource specialist works directly with the city’s Project VISION, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, government entities, businesses and individuals established in 2013 to build a brighter future for Rutland. The coalition is working to address issues such as substance use disorder, homelessness and food insecurity. It’s led by the police department.
Before Prouty retired from the police force in 2021, he was director of Project VISION.
Prouty, 50, said he decided to rejoin the local police as a civilian employee because he believes he can contribute to finding solutions to the local problems. He wants to foster closer collaboration among organizations and streamline the process of coming up with solutions. “I wanna win,” he said in an interview on Sept. 1, his first month anniversary on the job. “I wanna have a level of success where people can say, ‘I think they’re onto something.’”
During his first month in the new position, Prouty said he responded to or assisted in 55 calls for service. The bulk, 14 calls, involved helping community members find a variety of resources. A smaller segment included welfare checks and assisting other agencies get in contact with their clients. “These clients are often homeless or do not have phones, even if they are housed,” Prouty said.
The police department has an embedded clinician from Rutland Mental Health Services, who specifically responds to mental health calls. Prouty said he sometimes accompanies the clinician.
Sheldon, who now heads Project VISION, said the police department is fortunate to have Prouty in the role, because he was able to hit the ground running. When the department created the position, Sheldon said they were expecting the community resource specialist to undergo up to six months of training, which would’ve included understanding the difference between criminal and noncriminal calls for service.
“We didn’t know Matt was gonna apply,” Sheldon said. “It was a pleasant surprise.”
Since Prouty works Monday to Friday, the department is hoping to soon hire a second community resource specialist so every day of the week can be covered.
The Rutland City Police Commission, which endorsed the creation of this new job, is supporting the department’s request for a second staffer.
The commission, said Chair Sean Sargeant, has a “soft verbal commitment” from both Mayor David Allaire and the Board of Aldermen to fund a second position if they can show that the community resource specialist role is improving the police department’s service to the community.
Prouty said he feels some pressure to show that the new position is the right move for the city. But in the meantime, he appears satisfied to be back in his old police cruiser as he drives around town, visiting with community members.
His cruiser’s roof-mounted emergency lights are gone, and the police department logo has been replaced with the seal for the City of Rutland. This allows him to better blend in as a civilian and doesn’t spook some people into running away as they would with a police officer. “People now think I work for the public works department,” Prouty said.
