Mendon Police Department

With the summertime rapidly approaching, we often see an influx in residents participating in the use of Electric Bicycles and Recreation Vehicles.

While we encourage having fun, it's important to know the laws and regulations before you ride to maintain the safety of everyone.

Be in the know before you go!

Officer Lopez and Officer Thompson had the opportunity to spend some time down at the Metacomet Emergency Communications Center (MECC) to wish them a happy National Public Safety Telecommunications Week!

The MECC personnel provide us essential services day in and day out that allow us to operate in a quick and efficient manner.

We hope you guys enjoyed the coffee and donuts as a token of our appreciation!

After a months long investigation, the Mendon Police Department's Donut Enforcement Task Force (DETF) seized several units of counterfeit donuts with intent to mimic a local authorized donut supplier.

The DETF seized several forms of contraband including the following:

- Three 8-Count boxes of counterfeit donuts being sold
- Three bags of counterfeit donut-holes
- Two bags of counterfeit Coffee Beans
- Over $1000 in seized profit

Several arrests were made during this operation and the suspects were charged with:

- Possession of Counterfeit Donuts with intent to Distribute
- Possession of Counterfeit Donut-Holes with intent to Distribute
- Possession of Counterfeit Coffee Beans with intent to distribute
- Money Laundering

It is imperative that the donuts in this community are sold legally and safely distributed to those who require their favorite morning beverage and breakfast delicacies.

All suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty.

And most importantly April Fool's! See you next year!

With advancing technology often comes more complex scams. These scams often come with text messages or phone calls that may feel threatening, request payments or both. Ways to identify scams can be found below:

- Government Agencies such as the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Courthouses of any kind will NEVER attempt to contact you via text messages, phone, or email

- Scams often come from numbers outside of the US and have an have different phone country codes (ex: +63 (999)-999-9999) instead of the US country code of +1

- Scams also often come from unknown emails addresses that are inconsistent with the agency being impersonated

- Scams often include several grammatical errors within these electronic messages

- Scams often request payments through uncommon means such as gift cards, cryptocurrency, or mobile cash transfer applications

If you suspect that you be be the subject of a scam it is important to do the following:

- Immediately contact your local police department with any question, concerns, or reports of a scam

- Never click any links attached to any message

- Never provide any personal information (ex: Social Security Numbers, credit card information, bank account numbers, names, maiden names, or date of births, etc.

- Never provide any monetary payments of any kind

Identity Theft Identity theft occurs when someone steals your personal information, such as your Social Security number or bank account information, to commit fraud or other crimes. Identity theft can take many forms and can leave your finances in disarray.

We as a department just wanted to extend our gratitude to all residents for their cooperation in maintaining safety during the past weekend's winter storm.

There were no issues with street parking allowing for the quick and efficient clearing of the roadways. Additionally, with everyone's efforts to stay off the roadways, we only responded to one motor vehicle accident.

Just a reminder that this weekend's forecast shows a potential for another several inches of snow. As the storm approaches, we ask residents to continue keeping parked vehicles off the roadways and avoid driving when possible.

Safety and preparation tips for winter storms can be found on our previous post from this past weekend.

We thank you again for your continued efforts to help us keep this community safe!