Police association: Wray's plans won't shorten response times
Back in February, our cops reporter Eric J.S. Townsend wrote about Greensboro Police Chief David Wray's request for 40 more police officers in next year's budget:
It's the answer top Greensboro police officials often give for crime-related questions: "TSET." Why did the homicide rate decline last year? In part because of TSET, short for Tactical Special Enforcement Teams. Why have fewer complaints been lodged about drug activity? TSET. Where do we want to focus future resources? Again, TSET. As elected leaders begin debating the city's annual budget, police Chief David Wray has made clear he wants to expand not only the unit's size, but also its mission. Doing so requires 16 additional officers, included among the 40 new sworn positions sought by the agency in the coming year. TSET's expansion is the centerpiece of Wray's request to City Council.
In response, the head of the Greensboro Police Officers Association, Eddy Summers, wrote about how Wray's plans wouldn't actually put more badges on the street answering 911 calls or patrolling. This is an e-mail sent to city council members:
I was recently interviewed by Eric Townsend with the News & Record concerning the article he did on February 14th concerning Chief Wray's request for 40 new positions within the Department. I had first heard Chief Wray's pitch for additional officers as I sat in the January 25th Budget meeting to Council.For those of you who haven't heard, Chief Wray has asked for 16 positions for two new TSET squads, 9 positions for SOD/ Traffic, 8 positions for two additional CRT officers per district, 3 positions for the newly expanded walking squad (Center City Resource Team), 2 positions for training, one position for a forensic computer detective and one new lieutenant position as a "special projects coordinator."
My statement to Eric went something like this.
Last year Chief Wray went to the City Council requesting 100 additional officers to be added to the ranks. He justified the request with the manpower study that showed our response time of 7 minutes 51 seconds for Priority 1 calls. It also showed Greensboro officers devoting only 45 minutes in an 11-hour shift to proactive patrolling. Both are far less than officers in Raleigh, Durham and Winston Salem. The study also stated adding 32 officers would increase proactive patrolling by 10%. Greensboro also had fewer officers per capita than those cities.
This is in comparison to 1997 when our response time was 5 minutes 54 seconds and in 2000 when it was 6 minutes 34 seconds.In an article last year, Chief Wray said it is important that the department capitalize on whatever the City Council offers this year (2004-2005). "The community wants to see returns on their investment, and we're going to deliver on that," Wray said.
Another article stated Councilwoman Florence Gatten, who represents western Greensboro, said she has long fought for more police service for her district, where response times are longer. Gatten wanted the department to look not only at how many officers it needs but also where it deploys those officers.
While much attention is paid to crime in southeast Greensboro, "the real truth is that western and northern Greensboro has the same needs, and those needs are not being met," Gatten said. "It's going to be hard for me to support an increase unless I can have an assurance that those assets are going to be used in my area," she said.
Still another article stated about 44 percent of the department's then 511 allocated officers are assigned to patrol. Fayetteville is the only one of the State's six biggest cities with a lower percentage of officers devoted to patrol.
During this same time the GPOA put up a very effective and noticeable billboard that cited our manpower shortages, low morale, and high response times.
The Council agreed to fund 32 additional positions in the 2004-2005 budget with a promise to revisit it in the 2005- 2006 budget. The department also received 2 new positions for the annexed area of Reedy Fork Ranch.
Those 34 have not yet finished rookie school. Those 34 have not yet started field training. Those 34 have not yet answered a call but what has the Chief done? He has asked for 40 new positions and not one of the new positions will directly affect response times nor increase proactive patrolling by even a minute.
Even with the 34 new rookies devoted to call answering, we still only have 47% of our total officers in the Department committed to call answering and proactive policing.
All proposed positions are more likely to generate calls rather than assist in reducing the call load. All proposed positions will not affect the proactive policing hours cited last year.
Also, not one of those positions will add needed manpower to reduce the caseload for detectives in Vice/ Narcotics or in the Districts and will only add one new investigator to CID. This new investigator position, by nature of the assignment, will most likely generate more cases than will be assigned by way of the field.
Think about this. If approved, the newly created positions will add an equal number of new positions to "special projects" than to all of the follow-up detectives assigned to CID, the Districts or Vice/ Narcotics.
What the heck is a "special projects coordinator?" What will a lieutenant do in relation to coordinating "special projects" and why do we need to pay someone more than $60,000 and an assigned vehicle to do it? Especially when we are still going out with only 2 and 3 officers per shift, per district at times.
Forty officers will be assigned to these created positions. And where will they come from? Ultimately from the field as always. That means an influx of 40 new rookies to answer calls and fill the spots abandoned by the more veteran officers who will fill the positions in TSET and Traffic and CRT and CCRT and Training and CID and "special projects." That's an increase of inexperienced rookies to the already admittedly inexperienced call answering squads and training coaches.
Two weeks ago there was an attempt robbery at a local restaurant on High Point Rd. and here is a short version. A detective passing by witnessed two citizens chasing the bad guy. He called it in, additional units responded and the bad guy was caught. A great job to all who had a hand in the arrest.
When I look at this, two questions come to mind. Why did this take place and why was he caught so quickly?
I'm trying to think big picture here. I firmly believe if we had more officers riding around in marked cars, the bad guys would see more of us and may not have tried to rob the restaurant. Then we would not have needed to devote huge amounts of man-hours to the arrest, interview, and follow-up to determine if he had robbed other places or bad guy prosecution. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of arrest, interview, follow-up and prosecution.And the main reason this guy got caught so quickly was because a vigilant police officer was out on the street. More cops on the street equate to more eyes on the street, quicker response times and more bad guys caught faster.
And another thing. If we had 40 more officers devoted to call answering, do you think during the lull in action they could work on the street level narcotic sales like the new TSET officers? Or do you think they could work on the traffic problems like the new traffic officers? Or do you think they could work on the neighborhood and community issues like the new CRT or CCRT officers? Shoot, we could call all 40 of them "special project coordinators."
And Councilwoman Gatten should not expect to see any of these 40 new positions devoted to call answering or proactive policing in her District. That is not in Chief Wray's plan.
A good friend of mine who happens to be an administrator and I were talking once about manpower. We got on the subject of specialized units and he asked me what would happen if we disbanded all the specialized units that don't take and answer calls and put them back out on the street? Of course in all my brilliance my answer was "I dunno!" And he said, "That's exactly right. We've always pulled from the field instead of adding to it. We don't know because we've never tried. We have never had an overabundance of cops on the street. " We continue this trend.
Most specialized units are good for stats and letters and articles for the Department. With the call load off of those assigned officers, they can devote unhindered man-hours to a specific "quality of life" or "community" problem. When they solve the problem, arrest the bad guy or drive the miscreants away or close the crack house they can show specific results with arrests or letters of commendations.
That's small-scale problem solving while the rest of the city is left shorthanded and shortchanged with high response times and minimal proactive policing. It's putting a Band-Aid on one cut while the rest of the City bleeds. The ratio of man-hours per problem is hard to track and justify by administrators.
And I get accused of small-mindedness and not thinking big picture. I just believe high- visibility cops on the street can prevent crime.
Stay safe and wait for an assist.
Eddy Summers
Police officers in NC can't unionize, so the GPOA is merely an association that pushes for more officers, better working conditions, etc. Summers mentions that the group bought a billboard highlighting the staffing problems and their complaints. The police department, indicentally, recently bought a billboard across the street from our office on E. Market trying to recruit new officers.
