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City Officials To Address Gun Crimes, EMS ‘Crisis’

Two pressing city issues may come closer to resolution on Monday.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist, Councilman Tony Dolce, R-Ward 2 and City Council president, Tim Jackson, public safety director and city police chief, and Matthew Coon, deputy city fire chief, will hold a news conference at 6 p.m. Monday in the City Hall lobby, 200 E. Third St., to announce investments to combat rising gun violence and the city’s EMS crisis.

Neither issue is a new one. The prevalence of gun crimes led to the city being named a participant in the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative, which brings the city state funding and cooperation between the Jamestown Police Department, Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office, county District Attorney’s office and County Probation Department.

“We, as an agency, are running into more loaded firearms than we have in years past,” Capt. Robert Samuelson of the Jamestown Police Department said recently. “We are continuing to aggressively combat this … working with local and state and federal partners.”

Through April 8 of this year, officers had come across 26 illegal firearms — some via traffic stops and others during ongoing investigations that Samuelson said routinely involve narcotics.

“For most of the guns, there’s a drug connection,” he told The Post-Journal. “It’s not unusual to find drugs, for there to be arguments over drugs or the sale of drugs for weapons to be involved.”

Recently, a 64-year-old man pointed a handgun at a city firefighter on East Second Street before entering the police station and showing the weapon to an officer. He was then taken into custody. Then a 17-year-old was charged after being found with a stolen AR-15 near South Main and Harrison streets moments after a man had been shot and killed near East Sixth Street — though there is no reported connection between the two incidents. A 16-year-old also was charged following a traffic stop Saturday in the area of Grant and East Seventh streets and was found with a loaded handgun after trying to run away from police.

The city saw seven confirmed shootings in 2021, for a total of 19 incidents. Two people died as a result of the shooting incidents. Police also seized 55 guns last year compared to only 17 in 2020.

The growing number of EMS responses by city firefighters has been an issue since before Sundquist’s term began in 2020. A declining number of responses by ALSTAR Ambulance, the city’s ambulance service provider, led to an increasing number of responses by Jamestown firefighters or, when city firefighters aren’t available, by surrounding volunteer fire departments. The number of EMS responses has been increasing steadily since at least 2009, eventually leading former Mayor Sam Teresi to propose four different alternatives to solve the issues, though none of those alternatives has been implemented.

When Sundquist arrived at a contract agreement with the union representing city firefighters, it included the hiring of four additional firefighters to staff an ambulance to help answer EMS calls. City Council members voted down the contract over cost concerns.

“Over the past two years, Jamestown firefighters have worked with the community and the city administration to find solutions to the pending EMS crisis, while also being good stewards of taxpayer resources,” Ben McLaughlin, Jamestown Professional Firefighters Association Local 137 president, said in February. “Unfortunately, because of the rejection of the tentative agreement, the issue remains. Over the last 10 years, ambulance transports have increased from 116 in 2011 to 1,130 in 2021. This is over a 1,000% increase. Additionally, the overall calls for emergency service are up 78%.”

The majority of the council also said in doing their due diligence, the terms of the tentative agreement were deemed untenable and financially unsustainable when coupled with the news that the governor’s budget for 2022 did not include the $1 million in additional aid the city requested.

“The terms of the firefighters’ personnel agreement were negotiated and consented to by the mayor’s team and signed by the mayor prior to any council review,” the majority of the council stated. “If approved, the financial cost to the city, through the year 2024, would exceed $2.1 million for the salary increases, benefits and hiring of four additional firefighters. The savings from removing lifetime health care benefits for only the new hires, based on actuary reporting, would be $8.8 million, but not until the year 2061.”

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