Police chief says he does not want armed citizens on patrol.

• Position: LOCAL NEWS

Byline: Steven H. Foskett Jr.

WORCESTER - Like any local story that attracts national attention, circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin appear to fluctuate daily.

But some reports remain consistent: George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, called police after reporting what he thought was a suspicious male roaming the gated community in Sanford, Fla. He followed him - against the advice of a police dispatcher - and moments later, he shot and killed Trayvon, who was unarmed and was returning to his father's fiancee's home after a trip to the store. Mr. Zimmerman has not been charged in connection with the shooting.

The incident sparked a national conversation about racial profiling, vigilantism and the proliferation of "stand your ground" self-defense laws across the country. In an interview this week, Police Chief Gary J. Gemme gave a local law enforcement perspective on some of the underlying issues.

The chief was blunt in his view on having armed citizen sentries monitoring a neighborhood.

"We are not looking for the community to go out and patrol the city of Worcester," he said. "We believe that it's best done by trained and supervised officers. I think there's a big difference."

That's not to say there are not instances in which citizens have come to the aid of people during robberies or have assisted police, he noted, but the case in Florida was not one of those instances.

"I think that we're talking about something spontaneous versus, `Tonight I'm going out on patrol in my neighborhood, I'm going to carry my firearm that I probably haven't shot in two years,'" the chief said. "Do I have a safety holster? Do I have a flashlight with batteries that aren't going to run dead? If I'm confronted, am I going to be able to defend myself and defend my weapon? I mean, those are all high bars, and as a policy, that wouldn't be a policy I would support."

He said officers train regularly with firearms, and a large part of recruit training surrounds "weapons retention" that includes training on the use of safety holsters.

"If you have a citizen out on the street with no training, and no real skills, the potential for a tragedy is high," Chief Gemme said.

In recent years, the chief has made illegal gun control a very public priority. He said the department has addressed gun violence by focusing on guns, drugs and gangs. Through efforts like the collaborative Street Violence Prevention Group...