I-Team: Police Draining Resources With So Many Calls To Tewksbury Hospital

By Christina Hager, CBS Boston

November 7, 2023

TEWKSBURY - This weekend Tewksbury police got a call about a man with a dangerous history roaming around town. "We had an individual who walked away whose court committed from the State Hospital," said Tewksbury Police Chief Ryan Columbus. He said it's a call police have gotten many times before.

Records obtained by the WBZ I-Team show nearly 3,000 police calls to the Tewksbury State Hospital in the last three years. More than 25 of them were for patients who went missing. "All but three...have significant criminal histories and criminal records," said Chief Columbus.

It's a state-run hospital with a large mental health patient population. Duxbury murder suspect Lindsay Clancy is among those currently there. It has its own campus police and added 19 new security cameras just this year. But Tewksbury police say they've responded to nearly 650 calls so far in 2023. According to the police report from this weekend's incident, the patient who escaped Saturday night had a record including attempted armed robbery, assault and battery, and carrying a dangerous weapon. After a resident spotted him at a farmstand in town, police later found him near a cemetery close to the hospital.

Tewksbury Hospital/CBS Boston

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